UC-NRLF 

III 

B   H    503  ^11 


NEW  YORK 
SKETCHES 

BY  JESSE  LYNCH  WILLIAMS 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


On  the  llarlcm   Kivcr-LiiivLisity   Ik-iglits  from   Kurt  G 


NEW  YORK  SKETCHES 


BY 


JESSE    LYNCH    WILLIAMS 


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WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 
NEW     YORK:::::::::::::::::::::::::1902 


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Copyright,    1902,   by 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


Published,    November,    1902 


Trow  Directory 

Printing  6^  Bookbinding  Company 

New  York 


TO 

^a^catic  Crcigljton  ^lUiamjsi 


Ml9(;943 


CONTENTS 


The   W^ater-Front i 

The   Walk   Up-Town 27 

The    Cross   Streets 63 

Rural    New   York    City 99 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


On   the    Harlem    Ri\er — ^Uni\'ersitv    Heights    from    Fort  George        Frotitispiece 

1'.\(;e 
Grant's   Tomb   and    Ri\ersicie    I)ri\e   (from   the   New   Jersey    Shore)        .         3 

Down    along    the    Battery    sea-wall     is    the    place    to    \yatch     the    ships 

go   by  \        .        .    ■ 5 

Old    New    Amsterdam " 

Just  as  it  has  been  for  years.       (Between  South  PVrry  and  the  Bridge.) 

New  New  York, 9 

Not  a  stone's  throw  farther  up     .      .      .     the  towering  wliite  city  of  the  new  century.      (Between 
South  Ferry  and  the  Bridge.  ) 

From   the   point   of  \  iew   of  the   Jersey   commuter      .      .      .      some    un- 
common, weird  effects 11 

(  Looking  back  at  Manhattan  from  a  North  River  feny-boat.  ) 

Swooping  silently,  confidently   across   from   one  city   to  the  other  13 

(East  River  and  Brooklyn  Bridge.) 

Looking   up   the   f^ast    Riser   from   the    Foot   of  Fift\-ninth   Street   .        •      ^5 

E\en    in   sky-line    he   could    find     something   new   almost   e\er\-   week   or 

tvyo  ..............      1 7 

The  end  of  the  day — looking  back  at  Manhattan  from  the  Brooklyn  Bridge. 

For    the    little    scenes      .      .      .      quaint     and     loyable,   one    goes     down 

along  the  South  Street   water-front 19 

Smacks  and  oyster-floats  near  Fulton  Market.      (  .At  the  foot  of  Beekman  Street,  East  Ri\  er. ) 

This   is   the   tired   cit\ 's   pla\ground 21 

Wajjiington  Bridge  and  the  Speedway — Harlem  River  looking  south. 

Here   is   where   the   town   ends,   and   the   country   begins      ...  23 

I  High  Bridge  as  seen  looking  south  from  Washington  Bridge. ) 

The   Old  and   the   New,   from  Lower  New  York  across   the    Bridge  to 

Brooklyn 24 

From  the  top  of  the  high  building  at  Broadway  and  Pine  Street. 

ix 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAG  I 


The   old   town   docs   not   change   so    fast   about   its   edges    ....  25 

(Along  the  upper  East  River  front  looking  north  tovvard  Blackwell's  Island.) 

opposite   the   o\aI   ot"  the   ancient    Bowling   Green        ...  29 

immigrant   hotels   ajid   homes 90 

No.    I    Broadway 90 

Lower  Broadway  during  a  parade 30 

The   beautiful   spire   of  Trinity 31 

clattering,   crowded,   typical    Broadway 32 

City    Hall   with   its   grateful   lack   of  height 33 

What's   the   matter  ? ^4 

In   the    wake   of  a    fire-engine 35 

No   longer   to   be   thrilled      .      .      .      will   mean   to   be   old  .        .        -37 

Grace    Church   spire   becomes   nearer 39 

Through   Union  Square 40 

windows  which   draw  women's   heads  around       .        .        .        -41 

Instead   of  buyers      .      .      .      mostly   shoppers 42 

crossing   Fifth   Ayenue   at   Twenty-third   Street     ....  43 

Madison   Square  with   the  sparkle  of  a  clear    .    .    .    October  morning  .  44 

In    front   of  the   Fifth    Ayenue   Hotel 45 

Diana   on   top   glistening   in   the   sun 46 

Seeing  the   Ayenue   from   a  stage-top 47 

people  go   to   the   right,  up    Fifth   Axenue 48 

A   seller  of  pencils 49 

It   is   also   better   vyalking   up   here 50 

those  who  walk   for  the  sake  of  walking 51 

At   the   lovyer   corner   of  the   Waldorf-Astoria 52 

with   baby-carriages 53 

This   is   the   region    of  Clubs 54 

(The  Union  League.) 

X 


ILLUS'IRATIOXS 


\r,K 


close-ranked    lv,)ar(liiiu;-st-h<)()l    S(|uacls 5  5 

the   coachmen    and    footmen    Hock    there 56 

The    Church    of  the    Hea\enly    Rest 57 

Approaching   St.    Thomas's 59 

The    Uni\ersitv    Chih      .      .      .      with    college   coats-ot-arms      ...  60 

Ohmpia    |ackies    on    shore    lea\e 61 

Down    near   the    eastern    end    of  the    street 65 

Across   'I'rinitv    Church-vard,   from    the   West 67 

An    K\ening    \'icw    of  St.    Paul's    Church 69 

The    sights   and    smells    of  the    water-front    are    here   too     .         .         .         -7^ 

An    Old    Landmark    on    the    l>ower    W^est    Side 73 

(Junction  ot"  Canal  and  l.aight  Streets.  ) 

Up   Beekman   Street 75 

Each      .       .       .       has  to  change  in  the  greatest  possible  hurry  from  lilock  to  block. 

Under   the   Apjiroach   to    Hrookhn    Bridge 77 

Chinatown 79 

It   still    remains  whimsicallv    indi\  idual    and    \  illage-like         .         .         .         .81 

A    Fourteenth   Street   Tree 83 

Such   as   broad   Twent\-third   Street   with    its   famous   shops       ...  85 

A    Cross   Street    at    Madison    Square 87 

Across   Twenty-fourth    Street — Madison    Square   when   the    Dewey   ;\rch 

was   there 88 

Herald   S(]uare 91 

As   it   Looks     on    a     Wet     Night — The     Circle,    Fiftv-ninth    Street   and 

Eighth   A\enue 93 

Hideous   high    Iniildings 95 

Looking  east  from  Central  Park  at  night. 

Flushing  Volunteer   Fire   Department    Responiling   to   a    Fire   Alarm        .  103 
A    Bit   of  Farm    Land    in    the    Heart   of  CJreater   New   York     .        .         .105 

Acre  after  acre,  farm  after  farm,  and  never  a  sign  of  city  in  sight. 

xi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


One   of  the   farmhouses   that   ha\e   Come   to   Town 107 

The  old  Duryea  House,  Flushing,  once  used  as  a  head-quarters  tor  Hessian  officers. 

East   End   of  Duryea    House,   where   the    Cow   is   Stabled  ....  108 

The    Old    Water-power    Mill    from     the     Rear    of    the     Old    Country 

Cross-roads   Store 109 

The   Old   Country  Cross-roads   Store,   Established  1828       .        .         .         .110 

In  the  background  is  the  old  water-power  mill. 

Interior  of  the   Old    Country    Cross-roads   Store 1 1 1 

The    Colony    of    Chinese    Earmers,   Near    the    Geographical    Centre   of 

New   York   City 112 

Working   as    industrialh'    as    the    peasants    of    Europe,   blue    skirts,   red 

handkerchiefs   about   their   heads 113 

Remains    of  a   Windmill    in     New    York    Cit\-,   Between     Astoria    and 

Steinway 114 

The    Dreary    fxlge   of  Long    Island    City         .         .                 .         .        .         •  115 

The     Procession     of    Market-wagons     at     College    Point   Eerry         .         .116 

Past  dirty  back\ards  and  sad  yacant  lots 117 

New   York   City   Up   in   the    Beginnings  of  the   Bronx   Regions — Skat- 
ing at   Bronxdale iiQ 

Another   Kind    of  City   Life — Along  the   Marshes   of  Jamaica    Bay        .  121 

There   is   profitable   oyster-dredging   in    seyeral   sections   of  the   city          .  i  23 

Cemeter)'    Ridge,   Near   Richmond,   Staten    Island 126 

A   Peaceful  Scene  in   New  York 127 

In  the  distance  is  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Borough  ot"  Richmond,  Staten  Island. 

A    Relic    of  the    Early    Nineteenth    Centur\,    Borough    of  Richmond        .  128 

An    Old-fashioned,   Stone-archeil    Bridge.      (Richmond,   Staten    Island)     .  129 

An   Old   House   in   Elatbush 131 


THE   WATER-FRONT 


Grant's  Tomb  and  Riverside  1  )rive  (from  tlie 
New  Jersey  Shore). 


THE    WATER-FRONT 


DOWN  along  the  Battery  sea-wall  is  the  place  to  watch 
the  ships  go  by. 
Coastwise  schooners,  lumber-laden,  which  can  get  far 
up  the  river  under  iheir  own  sail;  big,  full-rigged  clipper 
shios  that  have  to  be  towed  from  the  lower  bay,  their  toD- 
masts  down  in  order  to  scrape  under  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  ; 
barques,  brigs,  brigantines — all  sorts  ot  sailing  cratt,  with 
cargoes  from  all  seas,  and  trying  the  iiags  of  all  nations. 

White-painted  riyer  steamers  that  seem  all  the  more 
flimsy  and  riyerish  if  they  happen  to  churn  out  past  the 
dark,  compactly  built  ocean  liners,  who  come  so  deliberately 
and   arrogantly  up   past   the   Statue   of  Liberty,  to  dock  atter 

3 


NEW    YORK   SKETCHES 

the  long,  hard  job  ot  crossing,  the  home-comers  on  the 
decks  already  waving  handkerchiefs.  Plucky  little  tugs  (that 
whistle  on  the  slightest  provocation),  pushing  queer,  bulky 
tioats,  which  bear  with  ease  whole  trains  of  freight-cars, 
dirty  cars  looking  frightened  and  out  of  place,  which  the 
choppy  seas  try  to  reach  up  and  wash.  And  still  queerer 
old  sloop  scows,  with  soiled,  awkward  canvas  and  no  shape 
to  speak  of,  bound  for  no  one  seems  to  know  where  and 
carrying  you  seldom  see  what.  And  always,  everywhere,  all 
day  and  night,  whistling  and  pushing  in  and  out  between 
everybody,  the  ubiquitous,  faithful,  narrow-minded  old  ferry- 
boats, with  their  wonderful  helmsmen  in  the  pilot-house, 
turning  the  wheel  and  looking  unexcitable. 

That  is  the  way  it  is  down  around  Pier  A,  where  the 
New  York  Dock  Commission  meets  and  the  Police  Patrol 
boat  lies,  and  by  Castle  Garden,  where  the  river  craft  pass  so 
close  you  can  almost  reach  out  and  touch  them  with  your 
hand. 

The  "  water-front  "  means  something  different  when  you 
think  of  Riverside  and  its  greenness,  a  few  miles  to  the 
north,  with  Grant's  tomb,  white  and  glaring  in  the  sun,  and 
Columbia  Library  back  on  Cathedral  Heights. 

Here  the  **  lordly  "  Hudson  is  not  yet  obliged  to  become 
busy  North  River,  and  there  is  plenty  of  water  between  a 
white-sailed  schooner  yacht  and  a  dirty  tug  slowly  towing  in 
silence — tor  there  is  no  excuse  here  for  whistling: — a  carijo 
of  brick  for  a  new  country  house  up  at  Ciarrisons ;   while   on 

4 


i'     -^-'■■v**.";^?^-* 


Down  along  the  I'.aitery  sea-wall  is  the  place  to  watch  the  ships  go  by. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

the  shore  itselt  instead  oi  wharves  and  warehouses  and  ferry- 
sHps  there  are  yacht  and  rowing  clid^  houses  and  an  occa- 
sional bathing  pavilion  ;  and  above  the  water  edge,  in  place 
of  the  broken  ridge  of  stone  buildings  with  countless  win- 
dows, there  is  the  real  bluff  of  good  green  earth  with  the 
well-kept  drive  on  top  and  the  sun  glinting  on  harness- 
chains  and  automobiles. 

Now,  between  these  two  contrasts  you  will  find — you 
may  find,  I  mean,  tor  most  of  you  prefer  to  exhaust  Europe 
and  the  Orient  before  you  begin  to  look  at  New  York — as 
many  different  sorts  of  interests  and  kinds  of  picturesqueness 
as  there  are  miles,  as  there  are  blocks  almost. 

For  instance,  down  there  by  the  starting-point.  If  you 
go  up  toward  the  bridge  from  South  Ferry  a  block  or  so  and 
pull  down  your  hat-brim  far  enough  to  hide  the  tower  of  the 
Produce  Exchange,  you  have  a  bit  of  old  New  Amsterdam, 
just  as  it  has  been  for  years,  so  old  and  so  Amsterdamish, 
with  its  long,  sloping  roofs,  gable  windows,  and  even 
wooden-shoe-like  canal-boats,  that  you  may  easily  feel  that 
you  are  in  Holland,  if  you  like.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
more  like  Hamburg,  I  am  told,  but  either  will  do  if  vou  get 
an  added  enjoyment  out  of  things  by  noting  their  similarity 
to  something  else  and  appreciate  mountains  and  sunsets  more 
by  quoting  some  other  person's  sensations  about  other  sun- 
sets and  mountains. 

But  if  you  believe  that  there  is  also  an  inherent,  charac- 


n 


Old  New  Amsterdam. 
Just  as  it  has  been  for  years, 
ween  Soutli  I'erry  antl  the  liridye.) 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

teristic  beauty  in  the  material  manifestations  or  the  spirit  of 
our  own  new,  vigorous,  fearless  republic — and  whether  you  do 
or  not,  if  vou  care  to  look  at  one  of  these  sudden  contrasts 
referred  to — not  a  stone's  throw  farther  up  the  water-front 
there  is  a  notable  sight  of  newest  New  \'ork.  This,  too,  is 
good  to  look  at.  Behind  a  foreground  of  tall  masts  with 
their  square  rigging  and  mystery  (symbols  of  the  world's 
commerce,  if  vou  wish),  looms  up  a  wondrous  bit  of  the 
towering  white  citv  of  the  new  century,  a  cluster  ot  modern 
high  buildings  which,  notwithstanding  the  perspective  of  a 
dozen  blocks,  are  still  high,  enormously,  alarmingly  high — 
symbols  of  modern  capital,  perhaps,  and  its  far-reaching  pos- 
sibilities, or  they  may  remind  you,  in  their  massive  grouping, 
of  a  cluster  of  mountains,  with  their  bright  peaks  glistening 
in  the  sun  far  above  the  dark  shadows  ot  the  valleys  in 
which  the  streams  of  business  flow,  down  to  the  wharves  and 
so  out  over  the  world. 

Now,  separately  they  may  be  impossible,  these  high 
buildings  of  ours — these  vulgar,  impertinent  "  sky-scrapers  ;" 
but,  as  a  group,  and  in  perspective,  they  are  line,  with  a 
strong,  manly  beauty  all  their  own.  It  is  the  same  as  with 
the  young  nation  ;  we  have  grown  up  so  fast  and  so  far  that 
some  of  our  traits,  when  considered  alone,  may  seem  dis- 
pleasing, but  they  appear  less  so  when  we  are  viewed  as  a 
whole  and  from  the  right  point  (.)f  view. 

Or,  on  the  other  hand,  for  scenes  not  representatively 
commercial,  nor  residential  either  in  the  sense  that   Riverside 


New  New  York. 
Not  a  stone's  throw  tarther  up     .     .     .     the  towerintr  white  city  of  tlu 
(Between  South  Ferry  and  the  Bridge.) 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

IS,  but  more  ot  tlie  sort  that  the  word  "  picturesque  "  sug- 
gests to  most  people :  There  are  all  those  odd  nooks  and 
corners,  here  and  there  up  one  river  and  down  the  other, 
popping  out  upon  you  with  unexpected  vistas  full  of  life  and 
color.  Somehow  the  old  town  does  not  change  so  fast 
about  its  edges  as  back  from  the  water.  It  seems  to  take  a 
longer  time  to  slough  off  the  old  landmarks. 

The  comfortable  country  houses  along  the  shore,  half- 
way up  the  island,  first  become  uncomfortable  city  houses ; 
tlien  tenements,  warehouses,  sometimes  hospitals,  even  police 
stations,  before  they  are  finally  hustled  out  of  existence  to 
make  room  for  a  foul-smelling  gas-house  or  another  big 
brewery.  Many  of  them  are  still  standing,  or  tumbling 
down  ;  pathetic  old  things  they  are,  with  incongruous  cupo- 
las and  dusty  fanlights  and,  on  the  river  side,  an  occasional 
bit  ot  old-tashioned  garden,  with  a  bunker  which  was  for- 
merly a  terrace,  and  the  dirty  remains  of  a  summer-house 
where  children  once  had  a  good  time — and  still  do  have, 
difierent-looking  children,  who  love  the  nearby  water  just 
as  much  and  are  drowned  in  it  more  numerously.  It  is  not 
only  by  way  of  the  recreation  piers  that  these  children  and 
their  parents  enjoy  the  water.  It  is  a  deep-rooted  instinct 
in  human  nature  to  walk  out  to  the  end  of  a  dock  and  sit 
down  and  gaze;  and  hundreds  of  them  do  so  every  day  in 
summer,  up  along  here.  Now  and  then  through  these 
vistas  you  get  a  good  view  of  beautiful  BlackwelTs  Island 
with  its  prison  and  hospital  and  poorhouse  buildings.    Those 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

who  see  it  oftenest  do  not  consider  it  beautifuL  They 
always  speak  of  it  as  **  The  Island." 

For  those  who  do  not  care  to  prowl  about  for  the  scat- 
tered bits  of  interest  or  who  prefer  what  Baedeker  would 
call  '*  a  magniticent  panorama,"  there  are  plenty  ot  good 
points  of  vantage  from  which  to  see  whole  sections  at  once, 
such  as  the  Statue  of  Liberty  or  the  tops  of  high  buildings, 
or,  obviously,  Brooklyn  Bridge,  which  is  so  very  obvious 
that  many  Manhattanese  would  never  make  use  of  this 
opportunity  were  it  not  for  an  occasional  out-of-town  visitor 
on  their  hands.  No  one  ought  to  be  allowed  to  live  in 
New  York  City — he  ought  to  be  made  to  live  in  Brooklyn 
— who  does  not  go  out  there  and  look  back  at  his  town 
once  a  year.  He  could  look  at  it  every  day  and  get  new 
effects  of  light  and  color.  Even  in  sky-line  he  could  find 
something  new  almost  every  week  or  two.  In  a  tew  years 
there  will  be  a  more  or  less  even  line — at  least  a  gentle  un- 
dulation— instead  of  these  raw,  jagged  breaks  that  give  a 
disquieting  sense  of  incompletion,  or  else  look  as  it  a  great 
conflagration  had  eaten  out  the  rest  of  the  buildings. 

The  sky-line  and  its  constant  change  can  be  watched  to 
best  advantage  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Jersey  com- 
muter on  the  ferry;  he  also  has  some  wcMidertul  cohering  to 
look  at  and  some  uncommon,  weird  effects,  such  as  that  ot 
a  late  autumn  afternoon  (when  he  has  missed  the  5.15  and 
has  to  go  out  on  the  6.26)  and  it  is  already  quite  dark,  but 
the  city  is  still  at  work  and  the  towering  office-buildings  are 


THE    WATER-FRONT 


Swooping  silently,  confidently  across  from  one  city  to  the  other. 
(i;ast  Kivor  and  lirooklyii  l!ri(ls;e.) 


lighted are  brilliant   indeed  with  many  perfectly  even  rows 

of  light   dots.      The  dark  plays   tricks  with  the  distance,  and 
the  water  is  black  and  snakv  and   smells   o(  the  night.      All 

13 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

sorts  of  strange  tiiires  oC  light  and  purt^s  oi"  shadow  come 
from  somewhere,  and  altogether  the  commuter,  if  he  were 
not  so  accustomed  to  the  scene,  ought  not  to  mind  heing 
late  for  dinner.  However,  the  commuter  is  used  to  this, 
too. 

That  scene  is  spectacular.  There  is  another  from  the 
water  that  is  dramatic.  Possibly  the  pilots  on  the  Fall  River 
steamers  become  hardened,  but  to  most  of  us  there  is  an 
exciting  delight  in  creeping  up  under  that  great  bridge 
of  ours  and  daringly  slipping  through  without  having  it 
fall  down  this  time ;  and  then  looking  rather  boastfully 
back  at  it,  swooping  silently,  confidently  across  from  one 
city  to  the  other,  as  graceful  and  lean  and  characteristically 
American  in  its  line  as  our  cup  defenders,  and  as  overwhelm- 
ingly powerful  and  fearless  as  Niagara  Falls.  However 
much  like  the  Thames  Embankment  is  the  bit  of  East  Fifty- 
ninth  Street  in  a  yellow  fog,  and  however  skilful  you  may 
be  in  making  an  occasional  acre  of  the  Bronx  resemble  the 
Seine,  our  big  bridges  cannot  very  well  remind  anyone  of 
anything  abroad,  because  there  aren't  any  others. 

For  the  little  scenes  that  are  not  inspiring  or  awful,  but 
simply  quaint  and  lovable,  one  goes  down  along  the  South 
Street  water-front.  Fulton  Market  with  its  memorable 
smells  and  the  marketeers  and  'longshoremen  ;  and  behind  it 
the  slip  where  clean-cut  American-model  smacks  put  in,  and 
sway  excitedly  to  the  wash  from  the  Brooklyn  tcrry-boats, 
which  is  not  noticed  by  the  sturdy  New  Haven  Line  steam- 

14 


:..^.!Ji1-^'^^zSl  - 


p'l0.^^^4^i*i3S'" 


XJ51 


.-^..^ 


Looking  up  the  East  River  from  the  Foot  of  Fifty-ninth  Street. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

ers  nearby.  On  the  edge  of  the  street  and  the  water  are  the 
oyster  floats,  half  house  and  half  boat,  which  look  like  solid 
shops,  with  front  doors,  from  the  street  side  until,  the  seas 
hitting  them,  they,  too,  begin  to  sway  awkwardly  and  startle 
the  unaccustomed  passer-by. 

It  is  down  around  here  that  you  find  slouching  idly  in 
front  oi'  ship-stores,  loahng  on  cables  and  anchors,  the  jolly 
jack  tar  of  modern  days.  From  all  parts  of  the  world  he 
comes,  any  number  of  him,  if  you  can  tell  him  when  you  see 
him,  for  he  is  seldom  tarry  and  less  often  jolly,  unless  drunk 
on  the  very  poor  grog  he  gets  in  the  various  evil-looking 
dives  thickly  strewn  along  the  water-fronts.  Some  of  these 
are  modern  plate-glass  saloons,  but  here  and  there  is  a  cosey 
old-time  tavern  (with  a  step-down  at  the  entrance  instead  of 
a  step-up),  low  ceiling,  dark  interior,  and  in  the  window  a 
thickly  painted  ship's  model  with  flies  on  the  rigging. 

Farther  down,  near  Wall  Street  ferry,  where  the  smells 
of  the  world  are  gathered,  you  may  see  the  stevedores  un- 
loading liqueurs  and  spices  from  tropical  ports,  and  coffees 
and  teas ;  nearby  are  the  places  w^here  certain  men  make 
their  livings  tasting  these  teas  all  day  long,  while  the  horse- 
cars  jangle  by. 

Old  Slip  and  other  odd-named  streets  are  along  here, 
where  once  the  water  came  before  the  city  outgrew  its 
clothes  ;  before  Water  Street,  now  two  or  three  blocks  back, 
had  lost  all  right  to  its  name.  Here  the  big  slanting  bow- 
sprits hunch    away   in    over   South    Street   as   if  trying   to   be 

i6 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

quits  with  the  land  tor  its  encroachment,  and  the  plain  old 
brick  huildings  huddled  together  across  the  way  have  no 
cornices  for  fear  ot  their  being  poked  off.  Queer  t)ld  build- 
ings they  are,  sail  lofts  with  their  peculiar  roofs,  and  sailors' 
lodging-houses,  and  the  shops  where  the  seaman  can  buy 
everything  he  needs  from  suspenders  to  anchor  cables,  so 
that  after  a  ten-thousand  mile  cruise  he  can  spend  all  his 
several  months'  pay  within  two  blocks  of  where  he  first  puts 
foot  on  shore  and  within  one  night  from  when  he  does  so. 
Very  often  he  has  not  energy  to  go  farther  or  money  to  buy 
anything,  thanks  to  the  slavery  system  which  conducts  the 
sailors'  lodging-houses  across  the  way.  There  is  nothing 
very  picturesque  about  our  modern  merchant  marine  and  its 
ill-used  and  over-worked  sailors ;   it  is  only  pathetic. 

Those  are  some  of  the  reasons,  I  think,  why  East 
River  is  more  interesting  to  most  ot  us  than  North  River. 
Another  reason,  perhaps,  is  that  East  River  is  not  a 
river  at  all,  but  an  arm  of  the  ocean  which  makes  Long 
Island,  and  true  to  its  nature  in  spite  of  man's  error  it  holds 
the  charm  of  the  sea.  The  North  River  side  of  the  town 
in  the  old  davs  had  less  to  do  with  the  business  of  those  who 
go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  was  more  rural  and  residential; 
and  now  its  water-front  is  so  jammed  with  railway  ferry- 
houses  and  ocean-steamship  docks  that  there  is  little  room 
for  anything  else. 

However,  these  long,  rooted  docks  ot  famous  Cunarders 
and  American    and  White    Star    Liners,   and   of    the  Erench 

1 8 


i"M 


if    1^   1 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

steamers  (which  have  a  round-roof  dock  of  a  sort  all  their 
own)  are  interesting  in  their  way,  too,  and  the  names  ot  the 
foreign  ports  at  the  open  entrance  cause  a  strange  fret  to  be 
up  and  going ;  especially  on  certain  days  of  the  week  when 
thick  smoke  begins  to  pour  from  the  great  funnels  which 
stick  out  so  enormously  above  the  top  story  of  the  now  noisy 
piers.  Cabs  and  carriages  with  coachmen  almost  hidden  by 
trunks  and  steamer-rugs  crowd  in  through  the  dock-gates, 
while,  within,  the  hold  baggage-derricks  are  rattling  and 
there  is  an  excited  chatter  of  good-by  talk. 

By  the  time  you  get  up  to  Gansevoort  Market,  with  its 
broad  expanse  of  cobble-stones,  the  steamship  lines  begin  to 
thin  out  and  the  ferries  are  now  sprinkled  more  sparsely. 
Where  the  avenues  grow  out  into  their  teens,  there  are  coal- 
yards  and  lumber-yards.  On  the  warehouses  and  factories 
are  great  twenty-foot  letters  advertising  soap  and  cereals,  all 
of  which  are  the  best.  .  „  .  Farther  up  is  the  region 
of  slaughter-houses  and  their  smells,  gas-houses  and  their 
smells.  .  .  .  And  so  on  up  to  Riverside,  and  across 
the   new   bridije   to   the    unknown  wildness    of   Manhattan's 

o 

farthest  north,  and  Fort  Washington  wdth  its  breastworks, 
which,  it  is  pleasing  to  see,  are  being  visited  and  picnicked 
upon  more  often  than  formerly. 

But  over  on  the  east  edge  of  the  town  there  is  more  to 
look  at  and  more  of  a  variety.  All  the  way  from  tlie  Bridge 
and  tlie  big  white  battle-ships  squatting  in  the  Navy  Yard 
across   the   river  :    up   past    Kip's  Bay  with  its  dapper  steam- 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

yachts  waiting  to  take  their  owners  home  from  business ; 
past  BellevLie  Hospital  and  its  Morgue,  past  Thirty-tburth 
Street  ferry  with  its  streams  of  funerals  and  hshing-parties; 
Blackwell's  Island  with  its  green  grass  and  the  young  doc- 
tors playing  tennis,  oblivious  to  their  surroundings ;  Hell 
Gate  with  its  boiling  tide,  where  so  many  are  drowned 
every  year  ;  East  River  Park  with  its  bit  of  green  turf  ( it  is 
too  bad  there  are  not  more  of  these  parks  on  our  water- 
fronts) ;  past  Ward's  Island  with  its  public  institutions  ;  Ran- 
dall's Island  with  more  public  institutions — and  so,  up  into 
the  Harlem,  where  soon,  around  the  bend,  the  occasional  tall 
mast  looks  very  incongruous  when  seen  across  a  stretch  of 
real  estate. 

And  now  you  have  a  totally  different  feel  in  the  air  and 
a  totally  different  sort  of  "  scenery."  It  is  as  different  as  the 
use  it  is  put  to.  Below  McComb's  Dam  Bridge,  clear  to  the 
Battery,  it  was  nearly  all  work  ;    up  here  it  is  nearly  all  play. 

On  the  banks  of  the  river,  rowing  clubs,  yacht  clubs, 
bathing  pavilions — they  bump  into  each  other,  they  are  so 
thick  ;  on  the  water  itself  their  members  and  their  contents 
bump  into  each  other  on  holidays — launches,  barges,  racing- 
shells  and  all  sorts  of  small  pleasure  craft. 

Near  the  Manhattan  end  of  McComb's  Dam  Bridge  are 
the  two  lields  fluiious  for  football  victories,  baseball  chi 
pionships,  track  games,  open-air  horse  shows;  across  th 
bridge  go  the  bicyclers  and  automobilists,  hordes  ot  them, 
brazen-braided  bicyclists  who  use  chewing-gum  and  lean  tar 


am- 
e 


Here  is  w 
(High  liridy 


the   tou-n   ciuls.   an.l   the  <.iU 
seen  luukiti^  south  from  \\'ashii 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


W 


MSI     ^  I 


d^l  I    ■'^''*^^i^^f^~t^^-^--  0^*^  "^'°''''  "^""'^  '*'''  ^''■■''^^  '"  Brooklyn, 

"S    ^ilsl^'^^.M'H-'         -^     '      ",    "■'.«'     5  and  l.,.,e  Street. 


iis^ir=':' 


*%„, 


over,    leather     coated 
chauffeurs    with     their 

^^ip-'l/-^  "4^^  ^y^^   unnecessarily  pro- 

/  tected. 

Up  the  river  are  college  and  school  ovals  and  athletic 
fields ;  on  the  ridges  upon  either  side  are  walks  and  paths 
for  lovers.  Eor  the  lonelv  pedestrian  and  antiquarians,  two 
old  revolutionary  forts  and  some  good  colonial  architecture. 
Whirly-go-rounds  and  big  wheels  for  children,  groves  and 
beer-gardens  for  picnickers ;  while  down  on  one  bank  of 
the  stream  upon  the  broad  Speedway  go  the  thoroughbred 
trotters  with  their  red-faced  masters  behind  in  light -colored 
driving  coats,  eyes  goggled,  arms  extended. 

On  the  opposite  banks  are  the  two  railroads  taking  peo- 
ple to  Ardsley  Casino,  St.  Andrew's  CJolf  Club,  and  the 
other   countrv  clubs   and    the   public  links   at   Van   Cortlandt 

24 


THE    WATER-FRONT 

Park,  and  taking  picnickers  and  family  parties  to  Mosholu 
I^ark,  -dm]  regiments  and  squadrons  to  drill  and  pla\'  battle 
in  the  inspection  ground  nearhv,  and  botanists  and  natural- 
ists and  sportsmen  for  their  fun  farther  up  in  the  good  green 
country. 

No  wonder    there    is   a    different    feeling    in    the    air    up 


// 1' 


mi' 


'•^' 


'III 


The  old  town  does  not  change  so  fast  about  its  edges. 
(Alonjf  the  upper  i;.i-.t  kivcr  front  loi)kiiifr  north  toward  lilackwell's  Island.) 


25 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

alono-  the  best  known  end  of  the  city's  water-front.  The 
small,  unimportant  looking  winding  river,  long  distance 
views,  wooded  hills,  green  terraces,  and  even  the  great  solid 
masonry  of  High  Bridge,  and  the  asphalt  and  stone  resting- 
places  on  Washington  Bridge  somehow  help  to  make  you 
feel  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  outdoors  and  relaxation.  This 
is  the  tired  city's  playground.  Here  is  where  the  town 
ends,  and  the  country  begins. 


) 


THE   WALK   UP-TOWN 


1  •  -^f 


of  the  ancient  Bowling  Careen. 


THE   WALK   UP-TOWN 

THE  wiilk  up-town  reaches  from  the  hottoin  of  the 
buzzing  region  where  money  is  made  to  the  bright 
zone  where  it  is  spent  and  displayed  ;  and  the  walk  is  a  de- 
light all  the  wav.  It  is  fidl  of  variety,  color,  charm,  exhil- 
aration— almost  intoxication,  on  its  best  days. 

Indeed,  there  are  connoisseurs  in  cities  who  say  that  of 
all  walks  of  this  sort  in  the  world  New  York's  is  the  best. 
I'he  walk  in  London  from  the  city  to  the  \\>st  End  by 
way  of  Fleet  Street,  the  Strand,  and  Piccadilly,  is  teeming  with 


29 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


i 

i 

V  !•£.■]      '  (B 

M 

^1, 

f^i 

ss 

l^\-L.  '^ 

^jff 

i 

1 

1, 

•r  • 

"'H 

^ 

No.  I  Broadway. 


Lower  Ilroadway  during  a  parade, 


interest  to  the  tourist  —  Temple 
Bar,  St.  Clement's,  Traf-algar 
Square  and  all — but,  for  a  walk 
up-town,  a  walk  home  to  be  taken 
daily,  it  is  apt  to  be  oppressive 
and  saddening,  even  without  the 
fog ;  so  say  many  ot  those  who 
know  it  best.  Paris,  with  her 
boulevards,  undoubtedly  has  unap- 
proachable opportunities  for  the 
jiiUicur,  but  like  Rome  and  Menna 
and  most  of  the  other  European 
\^  capitals,  she  has  no  one  main  ar- 
tery for  a  homeward  stream  ot 
working  humanity  at  close  of  day  ; 
and  that  is  what  "  the  walk  up- 
town "  means. 

And  yet  so  few,  comparative- 
ly, of  those  whose  physique  and 
office  hours  permit,  take  this  ap- 
petizing, worrv-dispelling  walk  ot 
ours  ;  this  is  made  obvious  every 
afternoon,  from  three  o'clock  on, 
bv  the  surface  and  elevated  cars, 
into  which  the  bulk  v>'i  scowling 
Xew  "\\)rk  seems  to  preter  to  push 
itself,  alter  a  dav  spent  mostly  in- 


THE    WALK    UP-T()\VN 


doors  ;  here  to  get  humped  and  ill-tempered,  snatcliinu;  an 
occasional  glimpse  of  the  afternoon  paper  held  in  the  hand 
which  does  not  chitch  the  strap  overhead.  It  seems  a  great 
pity.  The  walk  is  just  the 
right  length  to  take  hetore 
dressing  tor  dinner.  A  line 
draw^n  eastward  from  the 
park  plaza  at  P'ifty-eighth 
Street  will  almost  strike  an 
old  mile-stone  still  standinii^ 
in  Third  Avenue,  which 
says,  "  4  miles  from  City 
Hall,  New  ^'ork."  Hie 
City  Plall  was  in  Wall 
Street  when  those  old-fash- 
ioned letters  were  cut,  and 
Third  Avenue  was  the  Post 
Road. 

I 


Many  good  New  York- 
ers    (chiedy,    however,    of 


1 
s 

i 

1 

c 
1 

he  beiiutiful  spire  <:>f  Trinity 


that  small  per  cent,  horn  in  New  ^'ork,  who  generally  know 
rather  little  ahout  their  town  except  that  thev  loxe  it)  have 
not  heen  so  remotelv  tar  dow  n  the  island  as  Battery  Park  for 
a  decade,  unless  to  engage  passage  at  the  steamship  otfices 
which   until  recently  were  to  he   found   in  the  sturdy  houses 

3J 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


of  the  <j;ot)d  old  Row  (though  once  called  ''  Mushroom 
Row  ")  opposite  the  ovdl  of  the  ancient  Howling  Cireen, 
where  now  the  oddly  placed  statue  of  Ahram  de  Peyster  sits 

and  stares  all  day.  (Now 
that  these  old  gable  win- 
dows and  broad  chimneys 
are  gone  I  uonder  how  he 
will  like  the  new  Custom- 
house. ) 

Now,  the  grandmothers 
of  these  same  New  York- 
ers, long  ago,  before  there 
wxre  any  steamships,  when 
Castle  Garden  was  a  sepa- 
rate island  and  Battery  Park 
was  a  fashionable  esplanade 
from  which  to  watch  the 
shipping  in  the  bay  and  the  sunsets  over  the  Jersey  hills — 
their  grandmothers,  dressed  in  tight  pelisses  and  carrying  ret- 
icules, wcvc  wont  to  take  a  brisk  walk,  in  their  very  low-cut 
shoes,  along  the  sea-wall  before  breakfast  and  breathe  the 
earlv  morning  air.  They  did  not  have  so  fir  to  ^ro  in  those 
days,  and  it  was  a  fashionable  thing  to  do.  To-day  you  can 
see  almost  every  varietv  of  humanity  on  the  cement  paths 
from  Pier  A  to  Castle  (Jarden,  except  that  known  as  fashion- 
able. Hut  the  sunsets  are  just  as  good  and  the  lights  on  the 
gentle  hills  of  Staten  Island  quite  as  soft   and  there  are  more 


crowded,   typical   Broadway. 


THE    WALK    UP-roWN 


City  Hal!  with  its  grateful  lack  of  heisht 


varieties  oi"  water-cnitt  to 
gaze  at  in  the  bristling  bay. 
I  should  think  more  people 
would  ccMiie  to  look  at  it  all. 

I  mean  ot  those  even 
who  do  not  like  to  mingle 
with  other  species  than  their 
own  and  vet  uant  fresh  air 
and  exercise.  On  a  Sundav 
in  winter  if  thev  were  to 
come  down  here  for  their  afternoon  stroll  thev  would  find 
(atter  a  pleasant  trip  on  nearlv  emptv  elevated  cars)  less 
*'  objectionable "  people  and  fewer  of  them  than  on  the 
crowded  up-town  walks. 

What  there  are  of  strollers  down  here — in  winter — are 
representatives  of  the  various  sets  of  eminently  respectable 
janitors'  families  (of  which  there  are  almost  as  manv  u;rades 
as  there  are  heights  of  the  roofs  from  which  thev  haxe  de- 
scended), and  modest  young  jackies,  with  Happing  trousers, 
and  open-mouthed  emigrants,  though  more  of  the  latter  are 
to  be  seen  on  those  iiimsy,  one-horsed  express  wagons  com- 
ing from  the  Barge  Office,  seated  on  piles  of  dirtv  baggage 
— with  steerage  tai2:s  still  fresh — whole  families  of  them, 
bright-colored  head-gear  and  squalling  children,  bound  for 
the  foreign-named  emigrant  hotels  and  homes  which  are  as 
interesting  as  the  immigrants.  Some  of  these  latter  are  right 
opposite  there  on  State  Street,  including  one   with  "  pillared 

3:^ 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


What's  the  matter' 


balconv  rising  from  the 
second  tioor  to  the  roof," 
which  is  said  to  be  the  ear- 
Her  home  of  Jacob  Dolph 
in  Banner's  novel — abetter 
fate  surely  than  that  of  the 
other  New  York  house  for 
which  the  book  was  named. 
Across  the  park  and  up 
and  around  West  Street  are 
more  of  these  immigrant 
places,  some  with  foreign  lettering  and  some  plain  Raines's 
law  hotels  with  mirrored  bars.  One  of  them,  perhaps  the 
smallest  and  lowest-ceiled  of  all,  is  where  Stevenson  slept,  or 
tried  to,  in  his  amateur  emigranting. 

These  are  among  the  few  older  houses  in  New  York 
used  for  the  same  purposes  as  from  the  beginning.  They 
seem  to  have  been  left  stranded  down  around  this  earliest 
part  of  the  town  by  an  eddy  in  the  commercial  current 
which  sweeps  nearly  everything  else  to  the  northw  ard  tvoni 
its  original  moorings.  .  .  .  But  this  is  not  what  is  com- 
monly meant  by  "  down-town,"  though  it  is  the  farthest 
down  you  can  go,  nor  is  it  where  the  walk  up-town  prop- 
erly begins. 

The  Walk  Up-town  begins  where  the  real  Broadway 
begins,  somewhat  above  the  bend,  past  the  foreign  consulates, 
away  from  the  old   houses   and   the  early  nineteenth   century 

34 


'I  hi:  walk  up-rc)\\'N 


In   l!ie  u-ak.-  of  a  fire- 


atniosphere.  C'rcnvdetl  side- 
walks, a  continuous  roar, 
intent  passers-by,  jammed 
streets,  clanging  cable-cars 
witb  down-towners  dodg- 
ing them  automatically  ; 
the  region  of  the  modern 
high  business  building. 

Above  are  stories  un- 
countable (unless  you  are 
willing  to  be  b  u  m  p  e  d 
into)  ;  beside  you,  hurried-looking  people  gazing  straight 
ahead  or  dashing  in  and  out  of  these  large  doors  which 
are  kept  swinging  back  and  forth  all  day  ;  very  heavy  doors 
to  push,  especially  in  winter,  when  there  are  sometimes 
three  sets  of  them.  Within  is  the  vestibule  bulletin-board 
with  hundreds  of  men's  names  and  office-numbers  on  it  ; 
near  by  stands  a  judicial-looking  person  in  uniform  who 
knows  them  all,  ainl  starts  the  various  elevators  by  ex- 
claiming *'  Up  !  "  in  a  resonant  voice.  While  outside  the 
crowd  still  hums  and  hurries  on;  it  never  gets  tired;  it 
seems  to  pav  no  attention  to  anything.  It  is  a  matter  ot 
wonder  how  a  living  is  made  by  all  the  newsstands  on  the 
corners;  all  the  dealers  in  pencils  and  pipe-cleaners  and  shoe- 
strintrs  and  rubber  faces  who  are  thick  between  the  corners, 
to  whom  as  little  heed  is  given  as  to  the  clatter  o\'  trucks  or 
the  wrangling  of  the  now-blocked  cable-cars,  or  the  cursing 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

truck-drivers,  or  the  echoing  hammering  o{  the  iron-workers 
on  the  huge  girders  of  that  new  othce  huilding  across  the  way. 

But  that  is  simply  because  the  crowd  is  accustomed  to 
all  these  common  phenomena  of  the  city  street.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  half  of  them  are  not  so  terrifically  busy  and 
important  as  they  consider  themselves.  They  seem  to  be  in 
a  great  hiuTV,  but  they  do  not  move  very  fast,  as  all  know 
who  try  to  take  the  walk  up-town  at  a  brisk  pace,  and  most 
of  them  wear  that  intent,  troubled  expression  of  countenance 
simply  from  imitation  or  a  habit  generated  by  the  spirit  ot 
the  place.  But  it  gives  a  quaking  sensation  to  the  poor 
young  man  from  the  country  who  has  been  walking  the 
streets  for  weeks  looking  for  a  job  ;  and  it  makes  the  visit- 
ing foreigner  take  out  his  note-book  and  write  a  stereotyped 
phrase  or  two  about  Americans — next  to  his  note  about  our 
"  Quick  Lunch  "  signs  which  never  fail  to  astonish  him, 
and  behind  which  may  be  seen  lunchers  lingering  tor  the 
space  ot  two  cigars. 

An  ambulance,  with  its  nervous,  arrogant  bell,  comes 
scudding  down  the  street.  A  very  important  young  interne 
is  on  the  rear  keeping  his  balance  with  arrogant  ease.  His 
youthful,  spectacled  face  is  set  in  stony  indifference  to  all 
possible  human  suffering.  The  police  clear  the  way  tor 
him.  And  now  see  your  rushing  *'  busy  throng "  forget 
itself  and  stop  rushing.  It  blocks  the  sidewalk  in  ti\e 
seconds,  and  still  stays  there,  growing  larger,  atter  those 
walking  up-town  have  passed  on. 

36 


TIIl^    WALK     rP-'I'()\VN 


The  heautitul  spire  ol  'I"rinit\',  with  its  soft,  hrown  stone 
and  tlie  green  trees  and  c|uaintl\'  lettered  historic  tomhs 
heneatli  and  the  damp  monument  to  Re\c)lutit)nar\'  martvrs 
over  in  one  corner — no  longer  looks  down  henigidy  on  all 
ahout  it,  because,  tor  the 
most  part,  it  has  to  look 
up.  On  all  sides  men  ha\'e 
reared  their  marts  of  com- 
merce  higher  than  the 
house  ot  Cxod. 

It  seems  perfectly  prop- 
er that  thev  should,  for  they 
must  build  in  some  direc- 
tion and  see  what  valuable 
real  estate  they  have  given 
up  to  those  dead  people 
who  cannot  even  appreciate 
it.  Here  among  the  quiet 
graves  the  thoughtful  stran- 
ger is  accustomed  to  moral- 
ize  tritelv  on  how  thoughtless  of  death  and  eternity  is  "  the 
hurrying  throng  "  just  outside  the  iron  fence,  who,  by  the 
wav,  have  to  pass  that  church  every  day,  in  many  cases  three 
or  four  times,  and  so  can't  very  well  keep  on  being  impressed 
by  the  nearness  of  death,  etc.,  about  which,  perhaps,  it  is  just 
as  well  not  to  worry  during  the  hours  (Jod  meant  tor  work. 
Even  though  one  cannot  get  much  of  a  view  from  the  stee- 


No  longer  to  be  thrilled 


.    will  mean  to  be  old. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

pie,  except  down  Wall  Street,  which  looks  harmless  and  dis- 
appointingly narrow  and  quiet  at  lirst  sight,  Trinity  is  still 
one  of  the  show-places  of  New  York,  and  it  makes  a  pleasing 
and  restful  landmark  in  the  walk  up  Broadway.  It  deserves 
to  be  starred  in  Baedeker. 

Now  comes  the  moc.t  rushing  section  of  all  down-town  : 
from  Trinity  to  St.  Paul's,  clattering,  crowded,  typical 
Down-Town.  So  much  in  a  hurry  is  it  that  at  Cedar  Street 
it  skips  in  twenty  or  thirty  feet  a  whole  section  of  numbers 
from  119  to  135.  The  east  side  of  the  street  is  not  so 
capricious;    it  skips  merely  from  No.   120  to  128. 

The  people  that  cover  the  sidewalks  up  and  down  this 
section,  occasionally  overflowing  into  the  streets,  would 
probably  be  pronounced  a  typical  New  York  crowd,  al- 
though half  of  them  never  spend  an  entire  day  in  New  York 
City  from  one  end  of  the  month  to  the  other,  and  half  of 
that  half  sleep  and  eat  two  of  their  meals  in  another  State  of 
the  Union.  The  proportion  might  seem  even  greater  than 
that,  perhaps  it  is,  if  at  the  usual  hour  the  up-town  walker 
should  be  obliged  to  struggle  up  Cortlandt  Street  or  any  of 
the  ferry  streets  down  which  the  torrents  of  commuters 
pour. 

Up  near  St.  Paul's  the  sky-scrapers  again  become  thick, 
so  that  the  occasional  old-fashioned  live  or  six  story  build- 
ings of  solid  walls  with  steep  steps  leading  up  to  the  door, 
seem    like    playthings    beside    which     the    modern    building 

3S 


THE    WALK    UP-T()\VN 


shoots  up — on  up,  as  if  just  beginning  where  tlic  old  ones 
left  off.  More  like  towers  are  many  of  these  new  edirices, 
or  niagnilied  obelisks,  as  seen  from  the  ferries,  the  windows 
and  lettering  for  hierogh'pliics.  Others  are  shaped  like 
plain  goods-boxes  on  end, 
or  suggest,  the  ornate  ones, 
pieces  of  carefully  cut  cake 
standing  alone  and  ready  to 
fall  oyer  at  any  monient 
and  damage  the  icing. 

Good  old  St.  Paul's, 
\yhich  is  really  old  and,  to 
some  of  us,  more  loyable 
than  ornate,  Anglican  Trin- 
ity, has  also  been  made  to 
look  insignificant  in  size  by 
its  overpowering  commer- 
cial neighbors,  especially  as 
seen  from  the  Sixth  Ayenue 
Elevated  cars  against  the 
new%  ridiculous  hi<j-h  build- 
ino;  on  Park  Row.  But  St.  Paul's  turns  its  plain,  broad,  Co- 
lonial back  upon  busy  Broadway  and  does  not  seem  to  care 
so  much  as  Trinity.  The  church-yard  is  not  so  old  nor  so 
laro;e  as  Trinity's,  but  somehow  it  always  seems  to  me  more 
rural  and  church-yardish  and  feels  as  sunny  and  sequestered  as 
though  miles  instead  of  a  few^  feet  from  Broadway  and  business. 

39 


Grace  Church  spire  becomes  nearer. 


NEW   YORK    SKETCHES 


^ 

^1  ^^          '^[■"■'^gai 

Through  L  nion  Square. 


Now,  ofF  to  the  right 
oblique  from  St.  Paul's, 
inarches  Park  Row  with  its 
very  mixed  crowd,  which 
overriows  the  sidewalks,  not 
only  now  at  going-home 
time,  hut  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  most  of  the 
night  ;  and  on  up,  under 
the  bridge  conduit,  black  just  now  with  home-hurrying 
Brooklynites  and  Long  Islanders,  we  know  we  could  soon 
come  to  the  Bowery  and  all  that  the  Bowery  means,  and 
that,  of  course,  is  a  walk  worth  taking.  But  The  Walk 
Up-town,  as  such,  lies  straight  up  Broadway,  between  the 
substantial  old  Astor  House,  the  last  large  hotel  remaining 
down-town,  and  the  huge,  obtrusive  post-otiice  building,  as 
hideous  as  a  badly  tied  bundle,  but  which  leads  us  on  be- 
cause we  know — or,  it  strangers,  because  we  do  not  know — 
that  when  once  we  get  beyond  it  we  shall  see  the  calm, 
unstrenuous  beauty  of  the  City  Hall  with  its  grateful  lack 
of  height,  in  its  restful  bit  of  park.  Here,  under  the  tirst 
trees,  is  the  unconventional  statue  of  Nathan  Hale,  and  there, 
under  those  other  trees — up  near  the  court-house,  I  suppose 
— is  where  certain  memorable  boy  stories  used  to  begin, 
with  a  poor,  pathetic  newsboy  who  did  noble  deeds  and  in 
the  last  chapter  always  married  the  daughter  of  his  former 
employer,  now  his  partner. 

40 


THE    WALK    IP-rOWN 


By  this  time  some  of  the  regular  walkers  up-town  have 
settled  down  to  a  steady  pace;  others  are  just  falling  in  at 
this  point — just  falling  in  here  where  once  (not  so  \erv 
many  years  ago)  the  citv  fathers  thought  that  few  would 
pass  hut  farmers  on  the  way  to  market,  and  so  put  cheap 
red  sandstone  in  the  hack 
of  the  City  Hall. 

Over  there,  on  the  west 
side  of  the  street,  still  stands 
a  complete  row  ot  early 
huildings — one  of  the  very 
few  remaining  along  Broad- 
way— with  gable  windows 
and  wide  chimneys.  Law- 
yers' otiices  and  insurance 
signs  are  very  prominent 
for  a  time.  Then  comes  a 
block  or  two  chiefly  of 
sporting-goods  stores  with 
windows  crowded  full  ot 
hammerless  guns,  smokeless  cartridges,  portable  canoes,  and 
other  delights  which  from  morning  to  night  draw  sighs  out  ot 
little  boys  who  press  their  faces  against  the  glass  awhile  and 
then  run  on.  Next  is  a  thin  stratum  composed  chietiy  ot 
ticket-scalpers,  then  suddenh'  you  hnd  yourself  in  the  heart 
of  the  wholesale  district,  with  millions  oi  brazen  signs,  one 
over  another,  with  names  "like  a  list  of  Rhine  wines;" 
block  after  block  of  it,  a  lonii;,  unbrt)ken  stretch. 

41 


Iiidows  which  dr 


's  heads  around. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


Instead  of  buyt 


mostly  shoppers. 


II 

This  comes  nearer  to  being  monotonous  than  any  part 
of  the  walk.  But  even  here,  to  lure  the  walker  on,  far 
ahead,  almost  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  caiion  of  commer- 
cial Broadway,  can  be  seen  the  pure  white  spire  of  Grace 
Church,  planted  there  at  the  bend  of  the  thoroughfare,  as  if 
purposely  to  stand  out  like  a  beacon  and  signal  tt)  those 
below  that  Broadway  changes  at  last  and  that  up  there  are 
some  Christians. 

But  there  are  always  plenty  of  people  to  look  at,  nor  are 
thev  all  black-mustached,  black-cigared  merchants  talking 
dollars;  at  six  o'clock  women  and  girls  pour  down  the  stairs 
and  elevators,  and  out  upon  the  street  with  a  look  oi  re- 
lief; stenographers,  cloak  inspectors,  forewomen,  and  little 
girls  of  all  ages.  Hien  you  hear  "  Good-night,  Mame." 
''(iood-night,  Rachel."  "What's  ycnu"  hurry?  Got  a 
date?"  And  off  they  go,  mostly  to  the  eastward,  looking 
exceedingly  happv  and  not  invariably  overworked. 

42 


THE    WALK    UP-TOWN 


)ssing  Fifth  Avenue  at  Twenty-third  Street. 


Others  are  emissaries  from  the  sweat-shops,  men  w  ith 
long  beards  and  large  bundles  and  very  st)ber  eyes,  patri- 
archal-lookino;  sometimes  when  the  beard  is  white,  who  go 
upstairs  with  their  loads  and  come  down  again  and  trudge 
off  down  the  side-street  once  more  to  go  on  where  they  lett 
off,  by  gas-light  now. 

And  all  this  was  once  the  great  Broadway  where  not 
many  years  ago  the  promenaders  strutted  up  and  down  in 
the  afternoon,  women  in  low  neck  and  India  shawls  ;  dan- 
dies, as  thev  were  then  called,  in  tremendous  trousers  with 
huge  checks.  Occasionally  even  now  you  see  a  tew  stroll- 
ers here  by  mistake,  elderly  people  from  a  distance  revisit- 
ing New  York  after  many  years  and  bringing  their  families 
with  them.  "  Now,  children,  you  are  on  Broadway!"  the 
fatherly  smile  seems  to  say.  "  Look  at  everything."  Hiey 
probably  stop  at  the  Astor  House. 

As  the  wholesale  dry-goods  district  is  left  behind  and 
the  realm  of  the   jobbers  in   "  notions  "   is  reached,  and   the 

43 


Madison  Square  with  the  sparkle  of  a  clear 
( )ctober  morning. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

handlers  of  artificial  flowers 
and  patent  buttons  and  all 
sorts  of  specialties,  Grace 
Church  spire  becomes  near- 
er and  clearer,  so  that  the 
base  of  it  can  be  seen. 
Here,  as  below,  and  farther 
below  and  above  and  every- 
where along  Broadwav,  are 
the  stoop  and  sidewalk  sell- 
ers of  candies,  dogs,  combs, 
chewing-gum,  pipes,  looking  -  glasses,  and  horrible  burn- 
ing smells.  They  seem  especially  to  love  the  neighbor- 
hood of  what  all  walkers  up-town  detest,  a  new  building  in 
the  course  of  erection — with  sidewalks  blocked,  and  a  set  of 
steep  steps  to  mount — only,  your  true  walker  up-town  always 
prefers  to  go  around  by  way  of  the  street,  where  he  is  almost 
run  down  by  a  cab,  perhaps,  which  he  forgets  entirely  a 
moment  later  when  he  suddenly  hears  a  stirring  bell,  an  ap- 
proaching roar,  and  a  shrieking  whistle  growing  louder  : 

Across  Broadway  flashes  a  flre-engine,  with  the  horses  at 
a  gallop,  the  earth  trembling,  the  hatless  driver  leaning  for- 
ward with  arms  out  straight,  and  a  trail  of  sparks  and  smoke 
behind.  Another  whizz,  and  the  long  ladder-wagon  shoots 
across  with  firemen  slinging  on  their  flapping  coats,  while 
behind  in  its  wake  are  borne  many  small  crazed  boys,  who 
could    no     more    keep    from    running    than    the    alarm-bell 

44 


THE    WALK    UP-TOWN 


at  the  engine-house  could 
keep  from  ringing  when 
the  poHceman  turned  on 
the  circuit.  A  n  d  young 
hoys  are  not  the  only  ones. 
No  more  to  he  thrilled  hv 
this  delight — it  will  mean 
to  he  old. 

Ill 

At  last  Grace  Church, 
with  its  clean  light  stone,  is 


In  front  of  the   Fifth   Avcnne   Hot.l. 

reached  ;    and  the  trreen  urass  and   shruhher\   in  front    of  the 


interesting-looking  (Jothic  rectory.  It  is  a  glad  relief.  And 
now — in  fact,  a  little  before  this  point — about  where  stood 
that  melancholy  building  bearing  the  plaintive  sign  *'  Old 
London  Street  " — which  was  used  now  for  church  ser- 
vices and  now  prize-hghts  and  had  never  been  much  of  a 
success  at  anything — about  here,  the  up-town  walkers  no- 
tice (imless  lured  off  to  the  left  by  the  thick  tree-tops  of 
Washington  Square  to  look  at  the  goodliest  row  of  houses  in 
all  the  island)  that  the  character  of  Broadway  has  changed 
even  more  than  the  direction  of  the  street  changes.  A 
short  distance  below  the  bend  all  the  stores  were  wholesale, 
now  they  are  becoming  solidly  retail.  Instead  of  buyers  the 
people  along  the  street  are  mostly  shoppers.  Down  there 
were   very  few  women  ;   up   here    are   very  lew   men.     I'his 

45 


NEW   YORK    SKETCHES 


Diana  on  top  glistening  in  the  sun. 


is  especially  noticeable 
when  U  n  i  o  n  Square  is 
reached,  with  cable  -  cars 
clanging  around  Dead 
Man's  Curve  in  front  of 
Lafayette's  statue.  Here, 
d  o  w  n  Fourteenth  Street, 
may  be  seen  shops  and 
shoppers  of  the  most  viru- 
lent type;  windows  which 
draw  women's  heads  around 
whether  they  want  to  look 
or  not,  causing  them  to  run 
you  down  and  making  them  deaf  to  your  apologies  for  it. 
Big  dry-goods  stores  and  small  millinery  shops  ;  general 
stores  and  department  stores,  and  the  places  where  the  side- 
walks are  crowded  with  what  is  known  to  the  trade  as 
*'  Louis  Fourteenth  Street  furniture."  All  this  accounts  for 
there  being  more  restaurants  now  and  different  smells  and 
another  feeling  in  the  air. 

From  the  upper  corner  of  Union  Square,  with  its'  glit- 
tering jewellery-shops  and  music-stores  and  publishers'  build- 
ings, and  its  somewhat  pathetic-looking  hotels,  once  fash- 
ionable but  now  fast  becoming  out-of-date  and  landmarkv 
(though  they  seem  good  enough  to  those  who  sit  and  wait 
on  park  benches  all  day),  the  open  spaciousness  of  MadistMi 
Scjuare   comes    into  view,  the    next    green   oasis   fir   the    up- 

46 


THE    WAT.K    UP-TOWN 


Seeing  the  Avenue  from  a  staRe-top. 


town  traveller.  This  will 
help  him  up  the  interven- 
ing hlocks  if  he  is  not  in- 
terested in  the  stretch  ot" 
stores,  though  these  are  a 
different  sort  of  shop,  and 
they  seem  to  say,  with  their 
large,  impressive  windows, 
their  footmen,  their  buttons 
at  the  d(K)r,"\Ve  are  very  su- 
perior and  fashionable," 

The  shoppers,  too,  are 
not  so  rapacious  along  here, 
because  they  have  more  time ;  and  the  clatter  is  not  so 
great,  because  there  are  more  rubber-tired  carriages  in  the 
street.  Nor  are  all  these  people  shoppers  by  any  means,  tor 
along  this  bit  of  Broadway  mingle  types  of  all  the  different 
sorts  of  men  and  women  who  use  Broadway  at  all  :  nuns, 
actors,  pickpockets,  detectives,  sandwich-men,  little  girls 
going  to  Huvler's,  artists  on  the  wav  to  the  Plavers' — the 
best  people  and  the  worst  people,  the  most  mixed  crowd  in 
town  may  be  seen  here  of  a  bright  afternoon. 

When  they  get  up  to  Madison  Square  the  crcn\d  divides 
and,  as  some  would  have  us  think,  all  the  "  nice  "  people  go 
to  the  right,  up  Fifth  Avenue,  while  all  the  rest  go  the  left, 
up  the  Broadwav  Rialto  and  the  tvpical  part  ot  the  Tender- 
loin. 

47 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


people  };o  to  the  right,   up   Fifth  Avenue. 


B  u  t  w  hen  Madison 
Square  is  reached  you  have 
come  to  one  of  the  Places 
of  New  York.  It  is  the 
picture  so  many  confirmed 
New  Yorkers  see  w  hen 
homesick,  Madison  Square 
with  the  sparkle  of  a  clear, 
bracing  October  morning, 
the  creamy  Garden  Tower 
over  the  trees,  standing  out 
clear-cut  against  the  sky, 
Diana  on  top  glistening  in 
the  sun ;  a  soft,  purple  light  under  the  branches  in  the  park, 
a  long,  decorative  row  of  cabs  waiting  for  "  hires,"  over  to- 
ward the  statue  of  Farragut,  and  lithe  New  York  women, 
wearing  clothes  as  they  alone  know  how  to  wear  them,  cross- 
ing Fifth  Avenue  at  Twenty-third  Street  while  a  tall  Tam- 
many policeman  holds  the  carriages  back  with  a  wave  of  his 
little  finger. 

It  is  all  so  typically  New  York.  Over  on  the  north  side 
by  the  Worth  monument  I  have  heard  people  exclaim, 
"  Oh,  Paris  !  "  because,  I  suppose,  there  is  a  broad  open  ex- 
panse of  asphalt  and  the  street-lights  are  in  a  cluster,  but  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  as  New  ^\)rkish  as  New  York  can  be. 
It  has  an  atmosphere  distinctively  its  own — so  distinctly  its 
own    that  manv  people,  as  I   tried  to    say  on  an  earlier  page, 

48 


THE    WALK    UP-TOWN 


A  seller  of  pencils. 


miss  it  entirely,  simply  be- 
cause they  are  looking  tor 
and  failing  to  find  the  at- 
mosphere of  some  other 
place. 

IV 

Now  this  last  lap  of  the 
walk — from  green  Madison 
Square  and  the  new  Mar- 
tin's up  the  sparkling  ave- 
nue to  the  broad,  bright 
Plaza  at  the  Park  entrance, 

where  the  brightly  polished  hotels  look  down  at  the  driving, 
with  their  awnings  flapping  and  tiags  out  straight — makes 
the  most  popular  part  of  all  the  walk. 

This  is  the  land  of  liveried  servants  and  jangling  harness, 
far  away,  or  pretending  to  be,  from  work  and  worry  ;  this 
is  where  erijoyment  is  sought  and  vanity  let  loose — and  that, 
with  the  accompanying  glitter  and  glamour,  is  ahvays  more 
interesting  to  the  great  bulk  of  humanity. 

It  is  also  better  walking  up  here.  The  pavements  are 
cleaner  now  and  there  is  more  room  upon  them.  A  man 
could  stand  still  in  the  middle  oi  the  hvoAd,  smcnith  walk 
and  look  up  in  the  air  without  collecting  a  crowd  instanta- 
neously, "^'ou  can  talk  to  your  companion  and  hear  the 
reply  since  the  welcome  relief  ot  asphalt. 

49 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


It  is  aisc)  better  walking  uy 


Here  Ciin  be  seen  hun- 
dreds of  those  who  walk  tor 
the  sake  of  walking,  not 
only  at  this  hour  but  all  day 
long.  In  the  morning, 
large,  prosperous  -  looking 
New  Yorkers  wdth  side- 
whiskers  and  \vell-fed  bod- 
ies —  and,  unintentionally, 
such  amusing  expressions, 
sometimes  —  walking  part 
w^ay,  at  least,  down  to  business,  with  partly  read  newspapers 
under  their  arms;  while  in  the  opposite  direction  go  young 
girls,  slender,  erect,  with  hair  in  a  braid  and  school-books 
under  their  arms  and  well-prepared  lessons. 

Then  come  those  that  w^alk  at  the  convenience  of  dogs, 
attractive  or  kickable,  and  a  little  later  the  close-ranked 
boarding-school  squads  and  the  cohorts  of  nurse-maids  with 
baby-carriages  four  abreast,  charging  everyone  off  the  side- 
walk. Next  come  the  mothers  of  the  babies  and  their 
aunts,  setting  out  for  shopping,  unless  they  have  gone  to 
ride  in  the  Park,  and  for  Guild  Meetings  and  Reading  Clubs 
and  Political  Economy  Classes  and  Heaven  knows  what 
other  important  morning  engagements,  ending,  perhaps, 
with  a  visit  to  the  nerve-specialist. 

And  so  on  throughout  the  morning  and  afternoon  and 
evening    hours,  each  with    its   characteristic   phase,  until   the 

5° 


THK    WALK    UP-'IOWN 


those  who  walk  for  the  ^akc  of  walking. 


last  late  theatre-party  has 
gone  home,  laughing  and 
talking,  from  supper  at 
Sherry's  or  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria;  the  last  late  hach- 
elor  has  left  the  now  quiet 
cluh  ;  the  rapping  ot  his 
cane  alcMig  the  silent  axenue 
dies  away  dtn\'n  an  echoing 
side-street  ;  a  n  d  a  lonely 
policeman  n  o  d  s  in  the 
shadow  of  the  church  gate-post.  Suddeidy  the  earliest  milk- 
wagon  comes  jangling  up  from  the  ferry  ;  then  dawn  comes 
up  over  the  gas-houses  along  East  Kiver  and  it  all  hegins 
over  again. 

But  the  most  popular  and  populous  time  of  all  is  the 
regular  walking-home  hour,  not  only  for  those  who  have 
spent  the  dav  down  toward  the  end  of  the  island  at  work, 
hut  for  those  who  have  no  more  serious  husiness  to  look 
after  than  wandering  from  cluh  to  cluh  drinking  cocktails, 
or  from  house  to  house  drinking  tea. 

All  who  take  the  walk  regularly  meet  many  of  the  same 
ones  every  day,  not  only  acquaintances,  hut  others  whom  we 
somehow^  never  see  in  any  other  place,  hut  learn  to  know 
quite  wxll,  and  we  wHMider  who  they  are — and  they  wonder 
who  we  are,  I  suppose.      Pairs  of  pink-taced  old  gentlemen. 


walkintr    arm-in-arm    and     talkini 


51 


vigorously. 


Contented 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


young  couples  who  look  at 
the  old  furniture  in  the 
antique-shop  windows  and 
who  are  evidently  married, 
and  other  younger  couples 
who  evidently  soon  will  be, 
and  see  nothing,  not  even 
their  friends.  Intent- 
browed  young  business  men 
with  newspapers  under 
their  arms ;   governesses  out 


At  the  lower  corner  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria. 

with  their  charges;  bevies  of  fluffy  girls  with  woodcock 
eyes,  especially  on  matinee  day  with  programmes  in  their 
hands,  talking  gushingly. 

It  is  a  sort  of  a  club,  this  walking-up-the-avenue  crowd; 
and  each  member  grows  to  expect  certain  other  members  at 
particular  points  in  the  walk,  and  is  rather  disappointed 
when,  for  instance,  the  old  gentleman  with  the  large  nose  is 
not  with  his  daughter  this  evening.  *'  What  can  be  the 
matter?"  the  rest  of  us  ask  each  other,  seeing  her  alone. 

There  is  one  man,  the  disagreeable  member  of  the 
club,  a  bull-frog-looking  man  of  middle  age  with  a  Ger- 
manic face  and  beard,  a  long  stride,  and  a  tightly  buttoned 
walking-coat  (I'm  sure  he's  proud  of  his  chest),  who  comes 
down  when  we  are  on  the  way  up  and  gets  very  indignant 
every  time  we  happen  to  be  late.  His  scowl  says,  as  plainly 
as  this  type,  **  What  are  you   doing  way   down   here   by  the 

52 


THE    WALK    UP-TOWN 


with  baby-carriages. 


Reform  Club  ?  ^'oii  know 
you  oui^ht  to  be  passing  the 
Cathedral  by  this  time  !  " 
And  the  worst  of  it  is,  wc 
always  do  feel  ashamed, 
and  I'm  afraid  he  sees  it. 

This  mile  and  a  halt 
from  where  Flora  McFlim- 
sev  lived  to  the  beginning 
of  the  driving  in  the  Park 
is  not  the  staid,  sombre,  provincial  old  Fifth  Avenue  which 
Flora  McFlimsey  knew.  Up  Fifth  Avenue  to  the  Park 
New  York  is  a  world-city. 

Not  merely  have  so  many  of  the  brown-stone  dwellings, 
with  their  high  stoops  and  unattractive  impressiveness,  been 
turned  over  to  business  or  pulled  down  altogether  to  make 
room  for  huge,  hyphenated  hotels,  but  the  old  spirit  of  the 
place  itself  has  been  turned  out  ;    the  atmosphere  is  different. 

The  imported  smartness  of  the  shops,  breeches  makers 
to  His  Royal  Highness  So-and-So,  and  millinery  establish- 
ments with  the  same  Madame  Luciles  and  Mademoiselle 
Lusettes  and  high  prices,  that  have  previously  risen  to  tame 
in  Paris  and  London,  together  with  the  numerous  clubs  and 
picture-galleries,  all  furnish  local  color;  but  it  is  the  people 
themselves  that  vou  see  along  the  streets,  the  various  lan- 
guages they  speak,  their  expression  of  countenance,  the  way 

53 


NEW    YORK   SKETCHES 


m 

WMnK 

JH^jJ^^;'  .      1^^^^ 

This  is  the  region  of  clubs.     (The  Union  League.) 


they  hold  themselves,  the 
manner  of  their  servants — 
in  a  word,  it  is  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  spot  that 
makes  you  feel  that  it  is 
not  a  mere  metropolis,  but 
along  this  one  strip  at  least 
our  New  York  is  a  cos- 
mopolis. 

And  the  Walk-Up-town 
hour  is  the  best  time  to  ob- 
serve it,  when  all  the  world  is  driving  or  walking  home  from 
various  duties  and  pleasures. 

There,  on  that  four-in-hand  down  from  Westchester 
County  comes  a  group  of  those  New  Yorkers  who,  unwill- 
ingly or  otherwise,  get  their  names  so  often  in  the  papers. 
The  lackey  stands  up  and  blows  the  horn  and  they  manage 
very  well  to  endure  the  staring  of  those  on  the  sidewalks. 

Here,  in  the  victoria  behind  them,  is  a  woman  who 
worships  them.  She  would  give  many  of  her  husband's 
new  dollars  to  be  up  there  too,  though  pretending  not  to  see 
the  drag.  See  how  she  leans  back  in  the  cushions  and  tries 
to  prop  her  eyebrows  up,  after  the  manner  of  the  Duchess 
she  once  saw  in  the  Row.  She  succeeds  fairly  well,  too,  if 
only  her  husband  wouldn't  spoil  it  by  crossing  his  legs  and 
exposing  his  socks. 

Here  are  other  women  with   sweet,  artless   faces  who  do 

54 


THE    WALK    UP-TOVVN 


.     .     close-ranked  boardinfr-srhool  squads. 


not  seem  to  be  strenuous  or 
spoiled  (as  yet)  by  the  world 
they  move  in,  and  these  are 
the  most  beautiful  women 
in  all  the  world  ;  some  in 
broughams  ( as  one  popular 
storv-^^'riter  invariably  puts 
his  heroines),  or  else  walk- 
ing independently  with  an 
interesting  gait. 

Here,  in  that  landau, 
comes  the  latest  foreign-titled  visitor,  urbane  and  thought- 
fully attentive  to  all  that  his  friends  are  saying  and  pointing 
out  to  him.  And  here  is  a  bit  ot  color,  some  world-exam- 
ining, tired-eyed  Maharajah,  with  silk  clothes — or  was  it  only 
one  of  the  foreign  consuls  who  drive  along  here  every  day. 

There  goes  a  fashionable  city  doctor,  who  has  a  high 
gig,  and  correspondingly  high  prices,  hurrying  home  for  his 
office  hours.  Surely,  it  would  be  more  comfortable  to  get 
in  and  out  of  a  low  phaeton ;  this  vehicle  is  as  high  as  that 
loud,  conspicuous,  advertising  florist's  wagon — can  it  be  tor 
the  same  reason  ? 

Here  in  that  grinding  automobile  come  a  man  and  two 
women  on  their  way  to  an  East  Side  tn/^/e  d'hote,  to  see 
Bohemia,  as  they  think  ;  see  how  reckless  and  dexilish  they 
look  bv  anticipation  !  Up  there  o\\  that  'bus  are  some  peo- 
ple from  the  countrv,  real  people  trom  the  real  country,  and 

55 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


the  coachmen  and  footmen  flock  there. 


their  mouths  are  open  and 
they  don't  care.  They  are 
having  much  more  pleasure 
out  of  their  trip  than  the 
self-conscious  family  group 
entering  that  big  gilded 
hotel,  whose  windows  are 
constructed  for  seeing  in  as 
well  as  out  (and  that  is 
another    way    of    advertis- 

Here  comes  a  prominent  citizen  outlining  his  speech  on 
his  way  home  to  dress  for  the  great  banquet  to-night,  tor 
he  is  a  well-known  after-dinner  orator,  and  during  certain 
months  of  the  year  never  has  a  chance  to  dine  at  home  with 
his  family.      Suppose,  after  all,  he  fails  of  being  nominated  ! 

Here  come  a  man  and  his  wife  walking  down  to  a  well- 
known  restaurant — early,  so  that  he  will  have  plenty  of  time 
to  smoke  at  the  table  and  she  to  get  comfortably  settled  at 
the  theatre  with  the  programme  folded  before  the  curtain 
rises  ;  such  a  sensible  way.  He  is  not  prominent  at  all,  but 
they  have  a  great  deal  of  quiet  happiness  out  o{  living,  these 
two. 

And  there  goes  the  very  English  comedian  these  two  are 
to  see  in  Pinero's  new  piece  after  dinner,  though  they  did 
not  observe  him,  to  his  disappointment.  It  is  rather  late  tor 
an  actor  to  be  walking  down  to  his   club   to   dine,  but   he   is 

5<i 


THE    WALK    UP-TOWN 


'd 

y 

the  star  and  doesn't  come  on 
until  the  end  of  the  tirst  act, 
and  his  costume  is  merely 
that  same  broad-shouldered 
English-cut  frock  coat  he 
now  has  on.  We,  how- 
ever, must  hurry  on. 

Because     it     keeps     the 
eyes  so  busy,  seeing  all   the 

•11  111  The  Church  of  the  Heavenly  Rest. 

people  that  pass,  one  block 

of  buildings  seems  very  much  like  another  the  first  few^  times 
the  new-comer  takes  this  walk,  except,  ot  course,  for  con- 
spicuous landmarks  like  that  of  the  new  library  on  the  site 
of  the  late  reservoir  or  the  Arcade  on  the  site  ot  the  old 
Windsor  Hotel,  with  its  ghastly  memories  ;  but  after  awhile 
all  the  blocks  begin  to  seem  very  different  ;  not  only  the 
one  where  you  saw  a  boy  on  a  bicycle  run  down  and  killed, 
or  where  certain  well-known  people  live,  but  the  blocks 
formerly  considered  monotonous.  There  are  vt)lumes  of 
stories  along  the  way.  Down  Twenty-ninth  Street  can  be 
seen,  so  near  the  avenue  and  vet  so  sequestered,  the  Church  of 
the  Transfiguration,  as  quaint  and  low  and  toy-like  as  a  stage- 
setting,  ever  blessed  by  stage-people  for  the  act  which  made 
the  Little  Church  Around  the  Corner  known  to  everyone,  and 
by  which  certain  pharisees  were  taught  the  lesson  they  should 
have  learned  from  the  parable  in  their  New  Testament. 

57 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

Farther  up  is  a  church  of  another  sort,  where  Europeans 
of  more  or  less  nohle  blood  marry  American  daughters  of 
acknowledged  solvency,  while  the  crowd  covers  the  side- 
walks and  neighboring  house-steps.  Here,  consequently, 
other  people's  children  come  to  be  married,  though  neither, 
perhaps,  attended  this  church  before  the  rehearsal,  and  get 
quite  a  good  deal  about  it  in  the  society  column  too,  though, 
to  tell  the  truth,  thev  had  hoped  that  the  solemn  union 
of  these  two  souls  would  appropriately  call  forth  more 
publicity.  Shed  a  tear  for  them  in  passing.  There  are 
many  similar  disappointments  in  life  along  this  thorough- 
fare. 

Farther  back  we  passed  what  a  famous  old  rich  man 
intended  for  the  finest  house  in  New  York,  and  it  has  thus 
far  served  chiefly  as  a  marble  moral.  Its  brilliance  is  dingy 
now,  its  impressiveness  is  gone,  and  its  grandeur  is  some- 
thing like  that  of  a  Swiss  chalet  at  the  base  of  a  mountain 
since  the  erection  across  the  street  of  an  overpowering,  glit- 
tering hotel. 

This  is  the  region  of  clubs;  they  are  more  numerous 
than  drug-stores,  as  thick  as  florists'  shops.  But  it  seems 
only  yesterday  that  a  certain  club,  in  moving  up  beyond 
Fortieth  Street,  was  said  to  be  going  ruinously  far  up-town. 
Now  nearly  all  the  well-known  clubs  are  creeping  farther 
and  farther  along,  even  the  old  Union  Club,  which  for  long 
pretended  to  enjoy  its  cheerless  exclusiveness  down  at  the 
corner  of  Twenty-first   Street,  stranded   among   piano-makers 

58 


THE    WALK    UP-roWN 


i      iM 


iiwp-^-r»ij 


ApproachiiiK  St.   'I'h(jinas's. 

and   publishers,  and   then   with  a  leap  and  a  bound   went    up 
to  Fiftieth  Street  to  build  its  bright  new  home. 

Soon  the  new,  beautiful  University  Club  at  Fifty-fourth 
Street,  with  the  various  college  coats  of  arms  on  its  walls, 
which  never  fail  to  draw  attention  from  the  t)ut-ot-town 
visitors  on  'bus-tops,  will  not  seem  to  be  very  far  up-town, 
and  bv  iind  bv  even  the  great,  white  Metropolitan  will  not 
be  so  much  like  a  lonely  iceberg  opposite  the  Park  en- 
trance, I  wt)nder  if  anyone  knows  the  names  ot  them  all  ; 
there  always  seem  to  be  others  to  learn  about.  Also  one 
learns  in  time  that  two  or  three  houses  which  tor  a  long 
time  were  thought  to  be  clubs  are  really  the  homes  ot 
former  mayors,  receiving  from  the  city,  according  to  the 
old  Dutch  custom,  the  two  lighted  lamps  for  their  door- 
ways. This  section  of  the  avenue  where,  in  former  years, 
were  well-known  rural  road-houses  along   the   drive,  is   once 

59 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


."lie  University  Club 


more  becoming,  since  the 
residence  regime  is  over,  the 
region  of  famous  hostelries 
of  another  sort. 

There  is  just  oiw^  of  the 
old  variety  left,  and  it, 
strangely  enough,  is  within 
a  few  feet  of  two  of  the 
most  famous  restaurants  in 
America  —  the    somewhat 

•    -*  college  coats  of  arms.  ^^^-^^^     ^^^     ^^-^^     ^-^^^^     ^j^ 

Willow  Tree  Cottage  ;  named  presumably  for  the  tough 
old  willow-tree  which  still  persistently  stands  out  in  front, 
nt)t  seeming  to  mind  the  glare  and  stare  of  the  tall  elec- 
tric lights  any  more  than  the  complacent  old  tumble- 
down frame  tavern  itself  resents  the  proximity  of  Delmon- 
ico's  and  Sherry's,  with  whom  it  seems  to  fancy  itself  to  be 
in  bitter  but  successful  rivalry — for  do  not  all  the  coachmen 
and  footmen  dock  there  during  the  long,  wet  waits  of 
winter  nights,  while  the  dances  are  going  on  across  at 
Sherry's  and  Delmonico's  ?  Business  is  better  than  it  has 
been  for  years. 

In  time,  even  the  inconspicuous  houses  that  formerly 
seemed  so  much  alike  become  differentiated  and,  like  the 
separate  blocks,  gain  individualities  of  their  own,  though 
you  may  never  know  who  are  the  owners.  They  mean 
something  to  you,  just  as  do  so  many  of  the  regular  up-town 

60 


THE    WALK    UP-IOWN 


walkers  whose  names  vou 
de)  not  know  ;  tine  old  coni- 
tortahle  places  ni a  n  y  ot 
them  are,  even  though  the 
architects  of  their  da\'  did 
try  hard  to  make  them  un- 
comfortable w  i  t  h  high, 
steep  steps  and  other  absurd- 
ities. When  a  *'  For  Sale  " 
sign  comes  to  one  ot   these 

r       1  J       il  1 1  Olvmpia    Jackies  <m  slii.ro  lpav»>. 

you   reel    sorry,   and   rinally 

when  one  day  in  your  walk  up-town  you  see  it  irrevocably 
going  the  way  ot  all  brick,  with  a  contractor's  sign  out  in  front, 
blatantly  boasting  of  his  wickedness,  you  resent  it  as  a  per- 
sonal loss. 

It  seems  all  wrong  to  be  pulling  down  those  thick 
walls;  exposing  the  privacy  of  the  inside  of  the  house,  its 
arrangement  ot  rooms  and  tireplaces,  and  the  occupant's  taste 
in  color  and  wall  decorations.  Two  voung  women  w  ho  take 
the  walk  up-town  always  look  the  other  way  when  they  pass 
this  sad  display  ;  they  say  it's  unfair  to  take  advantage  of  the 
house.  Soon  there  will  be  a  deep  pit  there  with  pufRng 
derricks,  the  sideualk  closed,  and  show-bills  boldly  scream- 
ing. And  by  the  time  we  have  returned  ivon^  the  next  so- 
journ out  of  town  there  will  be  -au  othce-building  of  ever- 
so-many  stories  or  another  great  hotel.  Already  the  sign 
there  will  tell  about  it. 

6i 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

You  quicken  vour  pace  as  you  draw  near  the  Park;  some 
of  the  up-town  walkers  who  Uve  along  here  have  already 
reached  the  end  of  their  journey  and  are  running  up  the 
steps  taking  out  door-keys.  The  little  boy  in  knickerbock- 
ers who  seems  responsible  tor  lighting  Fitth  Avenue  has 
already  begun  his  zigzag  trip  along  the  street ;  soon  the 
long  double  rows  of  lights  will  seem  to  meet  in  perspective. 
A  few  belated  children  are  being  hurried  home  by  their 
maids  from  dancing-school  ;  their  white  frocks  sticking  out 
beneath  their  coats  gleam  in  the  half  light.  Cabs  and  car- 
riages with  diners  in  them  go  spinning  by,  the  coachmen 
whip  up  to  pass  ahead  of  you  at  the  street-crossing  ;  you 
catch  a  gleam  of  men's  shirt-bosoms  within  and  the  light 
fluffiness  of  women,  with  the  perfume  of  gloves.  Fewer 
people  are  left  on  the  sidewalks  now — those  that  are  look 
at  their  watches.  The  sun  is  well  set  by  the  time  you 
reach  the  Plaza,  but  down  Fifty-ninth  Street  you  can  see 
long  bars  of  after-glow  across  the  Hudson. 

In  the  half-dark,  under  the  Park  trees,  comes  a  group 
of  Italian  laborers;  their  hob  -  nailed  shoes  clatter  on  the 
cement-walk,  their  blue  blouses  and  red  neckerchiefs  stand 
out  against  the  almost  black  of  the  trees ;  they,  too,  are 
walking  home  for  the  night.  The  Walk  Up-town  is  fin- 
ished and  the  show  is  over  for  to-day. 


62 


THE  CROSS  STREETS 


m  ^x 


^,^  ^'~ 


Mi 


r'wi. 


Down  near  tiie  eastern  end  ni  ihe  street. 


THE  CROSS  STREETS 

A  CITY  should  be  laid  out  like  a  golf  links  ;  except  for 
•an  occasional  compromise  in  the  interest  ot  art  or 
expediency  it  should  be  allowed  to  follow  the  natural  topog- 
raphy of  the  country. 

But  this  is  not  the  way  the  matter  was  regarded  by  the 
commission  appointed  in  1807  to  layout  the  rural  regions 
bevond  New  York,  which  by  that  time  had  grown  up  to 
the  street  now  called  Plouston,  and  then  called  North  Street, 
probably  because  it  seemed  so  tar  north — though,  to  be  sure, 
there  were  scattered  hamlets  and  villages,  with  remembered 
and  forgotten  names,  here  and  there,  all   the   way  up    to   the 

65 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

historic  town  of  Haarlem.  The  commissioners  saw  fit  to 
mark  off  straight  street  after  shameless  straight  street  with 
the  uncompromising  regularity  of  a  huge  foot-ball  field,  and 
gave  them  numbers  like  the  white  five-yard  lines,  instead  of 
names.  They  paid  little  heed  to  the  original  arrangements 
of  nature,  which  had  done  very  well  by  the  island,  and  still 
less  to  man's  previous  provisions,  spontaneously  made  along 
the  lines  of  least  resistance — except,  notably,  in  the  case  of 
Greenwich,  which  still  remains  whimsically  individual  and 
village-like  despite  the  attempt  to  swallow  it  whole  by  the 
"  new  "  city  system. 

This  plan,  calling  for  endless  grading  and  levelling,  re- 
mains to  this  day  the  official  city  chart  as  now  lived  down 
to  in  the  perpendicular  gorges  cut  through  the  hills  of  solid 
rock  seen  on  approaching  Manhattan  Field ;  but  the  com- 
missioners' marks  have  not  invariably  been  followed,  or 
New  York  would  have  still  fewer  of  its  restful  green  spots. 
to  gladden  the  eye,  nor  even  Central  Park,  indeed,  for  that 
space  also  is  checkered  in  their  chart  with  streets  and  ave- 
nues as  thickly  as  in  the  crowded  regions  above  and  below  it. 

However,  anyone  can  criticise  creative  work,  whether  it 
be  the  plan  of  a  play  or  a  city,  but  it  is  difficult  to  create. 
Not  many  of  us  to-day  who  complacently  patronize  the  hon- 
orable commissioners  would  have  made  a  better  job  of  it  if 
we  had  lived  at  that  time — and  had  been  consulted.  For  at 
that  time,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  even  more  important  for- 
eign luxuries   than  golf  were  not    highly  regarded  in  Amer- 

66 


^,§^^^^4^ 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


ica 


,  and  America  had  quite  recently  thrown  off  a  foreign 
power.  That  in  itself  explains  the  matter.  Our  country 
was  at  the  extreme  of  its  reaction  trom  monarchical  ideals, 
and  democratic  simplicity  was  running  into  the  ground.  In 
our  straining  to  be  rid  of  all  artificiality  we  were  ousting 
art  and  beauty  too.  It  was  so  in  most  parts  of  our  awkward 
young  nation  ;  but  especially  did  the  materialistic  tendency 
of  this  dreary  disagreeable  period  manifest  itself  here  in  com- 
mercial New  York,  where  Knickerbocker  families  were 
lopping  the  "  Vans  "  off  their  names — to  the  amusement  of 
contemporaneous  aristocracy  in  older,  more  conservative 
sections  of  the  country,  and  in  some  cases  to  the  sincere 
regret  of  their  present-day  descendants. 

Now,  the  present-day  descendants  have,  in  some  in- 
stances, restored  the  original  spelling  on  their  visiting  cards ; 
in  other  cases  they  have  consoled  themselves  with  hyphens, 
and  most  of  them,  it  is  safe  to  say,  are  bravely  recovering 
from  the  tendency  to  over-simplicity.  But  the  present-day 
city  corporation  of  Greater  New  York  could  not,  if  it  so 
desired,  put  a  Richmond  Hill  back  where  it  formerly  stood, 
southwest  of  Washington  Square  and  skirted  by  Minetta 
River — any  more  than  it  can  bring  to  life  Aaron  Burr  and 
the  other  historical  personages  who  at  various  times  occu- 
pied the  hospitable  villa  which  stood  on  the  top  of  it  and 
which  is  also  gone  to  dust.  They  cannot  restore  the  Collect 
Pond,  which  was  filled  up  at  such  great  expense,  anti  covered 
by   the   Tombs   prison    and   which,  it   is   held   by   those   who 

68 


An  Evening  View  of  St.  Paul's  Church. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

ought  tt)  know,  would  have  made  an  admirable  centre  of  a 
fine  park  much  needed  in  that  section,  as  the  city  has  since 
learned.  They  cannot  re-establish  Love  Lane,  w^iich  used 
to  lead  from  the  popular  Bloomingdale  road  (Broadway), 
nearly  through  the  site  of  the  building  where  this  book  is 
published,  and  so  westward  to  Chelsea  village. 

They  wanted  to  be  very  practical,  those  commissioners 
of  1807.  They  prided  themselves  upon  it.  Naturally  they 
did  not  fancy  eccentricities  of  landscape  and  could  not  tole- 
rate sentimental  names.  *'  Love  Lane  ?  What  nonsense," 
said  these  extremely  dignified  and  quite  humorless  offi- 
cials ;  "  this  is  to  be  Twenty-first  Street."  They  wanted  to 
be  very  practical,  and  so  it  seems  the  greater  pity  that  with 
several  years  of  dignihed  deliberation  they  were  so  unpracti- 
cal as  to  make  that  notorious  mistake  of  providing  posterity 
with  such  a  paucity  of  thoroughfares  in  the  directions  in 
\\  hich  most  of  the  traffic  was  bound  to  flow — that  is,  up  and 
down,  as  practical  men  might  have  foreseen,  and  of  running 
thick  ranks  of  straight  streets,  as  numerously  as  possible, 
across  the  narrow  island  from  river  to  river,  where  but  few 
were  needed  ;  thus  causing  the  north  and  south  thorough- 
fares, which  they  have  dubbed  avenues,  to  be  swamped  with 
heterogeneous  traffic,  complicating  the  problem  for  later-day 
rapid  transit,  giving  future  generations  another  cause  tor  crit- 
icism, and  furnishing  a  set  of  cross  streets  the  like  of  which 
cannot  be  found  in  any  other  city  of  the  world. 


70 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


I 

These  are  the  streets  which  visitors  to  New  York 
always  remark;  the  characteristic  crt)ss  streets  ot  the  typical 
up-town    region    of  long    regular    rows    oi'  rectangular    resi- 


w 


/x  --', 


^   &)     <. 


s^   . 


-front   are   here   too. 


dences    that    look  so    much   alike,    with    steep    similar   steps 


ieadinj 


up    to  so 


mhre   similar  doors   and  a  doctor's 


every  other  window.  Bleak,  barren,  echoing  streets  where 
during  the  long,  monotonous  mornings  '*  rags-an-hot'l  "  are 
called  for,  and  bananas  and  strawberries  are  sold  trom 
wagons  by  aid  of  resonant   voices,  and   nothing  else  is  heard 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

except  at  long  intervals  the  welcome  postman's  whistle  or 
the  occasional  slamming  of  a  carriage  door.  Meantime  the 
sun  gets  around  to  the  north  side  of  the  street,  and  the  air- 
ing of  babies  and  fox-terriers  goes  on,  while  down  at  the 
corner  one  elevated  train  after  another  approaches,  roars,  and 
rumbles  away  in  the  distance  all  day  long  until  at  last  the 
men  begin  coming  home  from  business.  These  are  the  or- 
dinary unromantic  streets  on  which  live  so  few  New  York- 
ers in  fiction  (it  is  so  easy  to  put  them  on  the  Avenue  or 
Gramercy  Park  or  Washington  Square),  but  on  which  most 
of  them  seem  to  live  in  real  life.  A  slice  of  all  New  York 
wdth  all  its  layers  of  society  and  all  its  mixed  interests  may 
be  seen  in  a  walk  along  one  of  these  typical  streets  which 
stretch  across  the  island  as  straight  and  stiff  as  iron  grooves 
and  waste  not  an  inch  in  their  progress  from  one  river,  out 
into  which  they  have  gradually  encroached,  to  the  other 
river  into  which  also  they  extend.  It  is  a  short  walk,  the 
island  is  so  narrow. 

Away  over  on  the  ragged  eastern  edge  of  the  city  it 
starts,  out  of  a  ferry-house  or  else  upon  the  abrupt  water- 
front with  river  waves  slapping  against  the  solid  bulwark. 
Here  are  open,  free  sky,  wide  horizon,  the  smell  of  the 
water,  or  else  of  the  neighboring  gas-house,  brisk  breezes 
and  sea-gulls  flapping  lazily.  The  street's  progress  begins 
between  an  open  lot  where  rival  gangs  of  East  Side  boys 
meet  to  fight,  on  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  a  great 
roomy    lumber-yard,   with   a   very   small    brick    building    for 

72 


An  Old  Landmark  on  the  Lower  West  Side, 
(junction  of  Canal  and  Laight  Streets.) 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

an  office.  A  dingy  saloon,  of  course,  stands  on  the  corner 
of  the  lirst  so-called  avenue.  Away  over  here  the  avenues 
have  letters   instead  of  numbers  for  names.      Across  the  way 

and    it    is    easily    crossed,    for    on    some    of  these  remote 

thoroughfares  the  traffic  is  so  scarce  that  occasional  blades 
of  grass  come  up  between  the  cobble-stones — is  a  weather- 
boarded  and  weather-beaten  old  house  of  sad  mien,  whose 
curtainless  gable  windows  stare  and  stare  out  toward  the 
river,  thinking  of  other  days.  .  .  .  Some  warehouses 
and  a  factory  or  two  are  usually  along  here,  with  buzz- 
saws  snarling ;  then  another  lettered  avenue  or  two  and 
the  first  of  the  elevated  railroads  roars  overhead.  This  is 
now  several  blocks  nearer  the  splendor  of  Fifth  Avenue,  but 
the  neighborhood  does  not  look  it,  for  here  is  the  thick  of 
the  tenement  district,  with  dingy  lire-escapes  above,  and  be- 
low in  the  street,  bumping  against  everyone,  thousands  of 
city  children,  each  of  them  with  at  least  one  lung.  The 
traffic  is  more  crowded  now,  the  street  darker,  the  air  not  so 
good.  Above  are  numerous  windows  showing  the  subdi- 
visions where  many  families  live — very  comfortably  and 
happily  in  numerous  cases;  you  could  not  induce  them  to 
move  into  the  sunshine  and  open  of  the  country.  Here,  on 
the  ground  iioor  of  the  flat,  is  a  grocery  with  sickening 
fruit  out  in  front ;  on  one  side  of  it  a  doctor's  sign,  on  the 
other  an  undertaker's.  The  window  shows  a  three-foot 
coffin  lined  with  soiled  white  satin,  much  admired  by  the 
wise-eyed  little  girls. 

74 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


Up  l^<eekman  Street.         Each     ,     .     .     has  to  change  in  the  greatest  possible  hurry  from  block  to  block. 

As  each  of  these  succeeding  avenues  is  crossed,  with  its 
rush  and  roar  of  up-town  and  down-town  traffic,  the  neigh- 
borhood is  said  to  be  more  "respectable,"  meaning  more 
expensive  ;  more  ot  the  women  on  the  sidewalks  wear  hatt~ 
and  paint,  and  there  are  fewer  children  without  shoes  ;  pri- 
vate   houses    are    becoming    more    frequent  ;   babies   less   fre- 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

quent  ;  there  is  more  pretence  and  less  spontaneity.  The 
tiats  are  now  apartments  ;  they  have  ornate,  hideous  entrances, 
which  add  only  to  the  rent.  .  .  .  So  on  until  here  is 
Madison  Avenue  and  a  whole  block  of  private  houses,  varied 
only  by  an  occasional  stable,  pleasant,  clean-looking  little 
stables,  preferable  architecturally  to  the  houses  in  some  cases. 
And  here  at  last  is  Fifth  Avenue  ;  and  it  seems  miles  away 
from  the  tenements,  sparkling,  gay,  happy  or  pretending  to 
be,  with  streams  of  carefully  dressed  people  flowing  in  both 
directions ;  New  York's  wonderful  women,  New  York's 
well-built,  tight-collared  young  men;  shining  carriages  with 
good-looking  horses  and  well-kept  harness,  mixed  with  big, 
dirty  trucks  whose  drivers  seem  unconscious  ot  the  incon- 
gruity, but  quite  well  aware  of  their  own  superior  bumping 
ability.  Dodging  in  and  out  miraculously  are  a  few  bicy- 
cles. .  .  .  And  now  when  the  other  side  of  the  avenue 
is  reached  the  rest  is  an  anti-climax.  Here  is  the  trades- 
people's entrance  to  the  great  impressive  house  on  the  cor- 
ner, so  near  that  other  entrance  on  the  avenue,  but  so  far 
that  it  will  never  be  reached  by  that  white-aproned  butcher- 
boy's  family — in  this  generation,  at  least.  Beyond  the  con- 
servatory is  a  bit  of  backyard,  a  pathetic  little  New  York 
yard,  but  very  green  and  cheerful,  bounded  at  the  rear  by  a 
high  peremptory  wall  which  seems  to  keep  the  ambitious 
brownstone  next  door  from  elbowing  its  way  up  toward  the 
avenue. 

These  next  houses,  however,  are  quite  fine   and    impres- 

76 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


Under  the   Approach  to   Brooklyn   Bridge. 

sive,  too,  and  thev  are  not  so  alike  as  thev  seem  at  hrst  ;  in 
fact,  it  is  quite  remarkable  how  much  individuality  architects 
have  learned  of  late  years  to  put  into  the  eighteen  or  twenty 
feet  they  have  to  deal  with.  I1ie  monotony  is  varied  occa- 
sionally with  an  English  basement  house  or  a  tall  wrought- 
iron    gateway    and  a  hood    over    the    entrance.      Here  is    a 

77 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

white  C\)loiiial  doorway  with  side-Hghts.  The  son  of  the 
house  studied  art,  perhaps,  and  persuaded  his  father  to  make 
this  kind  of  improvement,  though  the  old  gentleman  was 
inclined  to  copy  the  rococo  style  of  the  railroad  president 
opposite.  .  .  .  Half-way  down  the  block,  unless  a  wed- 
ding or  a  tea  is  taking  place,  the  street  is  as  quiet  as  Wall 
Street  on  a  Sunday.  Behind  us  can  be  seen  the  streams 
of  people  flowing  up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue. 

By  the  time  Sixth  Avenue  is  crossed  brick  frequently 
come  into  use  in  place  of  brownstone,  and  there  are  not 
only  doctors'  signs  now,  but  "  Robes  et  Manteaux  "  are  an- 
nounced, or  sometimes,  as  on  that  ugly  iron  balcony,  merely 
Madame  somebody.  By  this  time  also  there  have  already 
appeared  on  some  of  the  newel-posts  by  the  door-bell, 
*'  Boarders,"  or  "  Furnished  Rooms  " — modestly  written  on 
a  mere  slip  ot  paper,  as  though  it  had  been  deemed  unneces- 
sary to  shout  the  words  out  for  the  neighborhood  to  hear. 
In  there,  back  of  these  lace- curtains,  yellow,  though  not 
with  age,  is  the  parlor — the  boarding-house  parlor — with 
tidies  which  always  come  off  and  small  gilt  chairs  which 
generally  break,  and  wax  wreaths  under  glass,  like  cheeses 
under  fly-screens  in  country  groceries.  In  the  place  of  honor 
hangs  the  crayon  portrait  of  the  dear  deceased,  in  an  ornate 
frame.  But  most  of  the  boarders  never  go  there,  except  to 
pay  their  bills;  down  in  the  basement  dining-room  is  where 
they  congregate,  you  can  see  them  now  through  the  grated 
window,  at    the   tables.      Here,   on    the    corner,    is    the   little 

7^ 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


tailor-shop  or  laundry,  which  is  usually  found  in  the  low 
building  back  of  that  facing  the  avenue,  which  latter  is  al- 
ways a  saloon  unless  it  is  a  drug-store  ;  on  the  opposite 
corner  is  still  another  saloon — rivals  very  likely  in  the  Tam- 
many district  as  well  as  in  business,  with  a  policy-shop  or  a 
pool-room  on  the  floor  above,  as  all  the  neighbors  know, 
though  the  local  good  government  club  cannot  stop  it. 
Here  is  the  "  family  entrance  "  which  no  family  ever  enters. 
Then  come  more  apartments  and  more  private  residences, 
not  invariably  passe,  more  boarding-houses,  many,  many 
boarding-houses,  theatrical  boarding-houses,  students'  board- 
ing-houses,   foreign    boarding-houses ;   more    small    business 

79 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

places,  and  so  on  across  varit)us  mongrel  avenues  until  here 
is  the  region  of  warehouses  and  piano  factories  and  linall)/ 
even  railway  tracks  with  large  astonishing  trains  of  cars. 
Cross  these  tracks  and  you  are  beyond  the  city,  in  the  sub- 
urbs, as  much  as  the  lateral  edges  of  this  city  can  have  sub- 
urbs ;  yet  this  is  only  the  distance  of  a  long  golf-hole  from 
residences  and  urbanity.  Here  are  stock-yards  with  squeal- 
ing pigs,  awful  smells,  deep,  Black  mire,  and  then  a  long 
dock  reaching  far  out  into  the  Hudson,  with  lazy  river 
barges  flopping  along-side  it,  and  dock-rats  Ashing  off  the 
end — a  hot,  hateful  walk  if  ever  your  business  or  pleasure 
calls  you  out  there  of  a  summer  afternoon.  There  the  typi- 
cal up-town  cross  street  ends  its  dreary  existence. 


II 

DowN-TOWN  it  is  so  difl^erent. 

Down-town — "  'way  down-town,"  in  the  vernacular — 
in  latitude  far  south  of  homes  and  peace  and  contemplation, 
where  everything  is  business  and  dollars  and  hardness,  and 
the  streets  might  well  be  economically  straight,  and  rigor- 
ously business-like,  they  are  incongruously  crooked,  running 
hither  and  thither  in  a  dreamy,  unpractical  manner,  begin- 
ning where  they  please  and  ending  where  it  suits  them  best, 
in  a  narrow,  ()ld-\Vorld  way,  despite  their  astonishing,  New- 
World  architecture.  Numbers  would  do  well  enough  for 
names  down    here,  but   instead   ot    concise   and  business-like 

So 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


i 

'if     ^ 

■'-/j 

....... 

i-^'^s      .--■---■»-'■ 

It  still  remains  whimsically  individual  and  village-like. 

Street-signs,  the  lamp-posts  show  quaint,  incongruous  names, 
sentimental  names,  poetic  names  sometimes,  because  these 
streets  were  born  and  not  made. 

They  were  born  of  the  needs  or  whims  of  the  early 
population,  including  cows,  long  before  the  little  western 
city  became  self-conscious  about  its  incipient  greatness,  and 
ordered  a  readv-made  plan  for  its  future  growth.  It  was 
too  late  for  the  painstaking  commissioners  down  here.  One 
little  settlement  of  houses  had  gradually  reached  out  toward 
another,  each  with  its  own  line  of  streets  or  paths,  until 
finally  they  all  grew  together  solidly  into  a  city,  not  caring 
whether  they  dovetailed  or  not,  and  one  or  the  other  or 
both  of  the  old  road  names  stuck  fast.  The  Beaver's 
Path,  leadino;  from  the  Parade  (which  afterward  became  the 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

Bowling  Green)  over  to  the  swampy  inlet  which  by  drain- 
age became  the  sheep  pasture  and  later  was  named  Broad 
Street,  is  still  called  Beaver  Street  to  this  day.  The  Maiden 
Lane,  where  New  York  girls  used  to  stroll  (and  in  still  more 
primitive  times  used  to  do  the  washing)  along-side  the 
stream  which  gave  the  street  its  present  winding  shape  and 
low  grading,  is  still  called  Maiden  Lane,  though  probably 
the  only  strollers  in  the  modern  jostling  crowd  along  this 
street,  now  the  heart  of  the  diamond  district,  are  the  special 
detectives  who  have  a  personal  acquaintance  with  every  dis- 
tinguished jewellery  crook  in  the  country,  and  guard  ''  the 
Lane,"  as  they  call  it,  so  carefullv  that  not  in  htteen  vears 
has  a  member  of  the  profession  crossed  the  "  dead-line " 
successfully.  There  is  Bridge  Street,  which  no  longer  has 
any  stream  to  bridge  ;  Dock  Street,  where  there  is  no  dock ; 
Water  Street,  once  upon  the  river-front  but  now  separated 
from  the  water  by  several  blocks  and  much  enormously 
valuable  real  estate  ;  and  Wall  Street,  which  now  seems  to 
lack  the  wooden  wall  by  which  Governor  Stuyvesant  sought 
to  keep  New  Englanders  out  of  town.  His  efforts  were  of 
no  permanent  value. 

Nowadays  they  seem  such  narrow,  crowded  little  run- 
ways, these  down-town  cross  streets;  so  crowded  that  men 
and  horses  share  the  middle  of  them  together  ;  so  narrow 
that  from  the  windv  tops  of  the  irregular  white  cliffs  which 
line  them  you  must  lean  far  over  in  order  to  see  tlie  busv 
little    men    at    the    dry    asphalt    bottom,   far    below,  rapidly 

82 


THK    CROSS    STREETS 


.^-^'^^^- 


"«;l4. 


V    \ 


v^VE- 


'f^% 


A  Fourteenth  Street  Tree. 


crawling  hither  and  thither  Uke  excitahle  ants  whose  hill  has 
heen  disturbed.  And  in  modern  times  they  seem  dark  and 
gloomy,  near  the  bottom,  even  in  the  clear,  smokeless  air  ot 
Manhattan,  so  that  lights  are  turned  on  sometimes  at  mid-day, 
for  at  best  the  sun  gets  into  these  valleys  for  only  a  tew  min- 
utes, so  high  have  the  tall  buildings  grown.  But  they  were 
not  narrow  in  those  old  days  of  the  Dutch,-  seemed  quite 
the  right  width,  no  doubt,  to  gossip  across,  from  one  Dutch 
stoop  to  another,  at  close  of  day,  with  the  after-supper  pipe 
when  the  chickens  and  children  had  gone  to  sleep  and  there 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

was  nothing  to  interrupt  the  peaceful,  putHng  conversation 
except  the  lazy  clattering  bell  of  an  occasional  cow  coming 
home  late  for  milking.  Nor  were  they  gloomy  in  those 
days,  for  the  sun  found  its  way  unobstructed  for  hours  at  a 
time,  when  they  were  lined  with  small  low-storied  houses 
which  the  family  occupied  upstairs,  with  business  below. 
Everyone  went  home  for  luncheon  in  those  days — a  pleasant, 
simple  system  adhered  to  in  this  city,  it  is  said,  until  com- 
paratively recent  times  by  more  than  one  family  whose  pres- 
ent representatives  require  for  their  happiness  two  or  three 
homes  in  various  other  parts  of  the  world  in  addition  to 
their  town  house.  This  latter  does  not  contain  a  shop  on 
the  ground  flour.  It  is  situated  far  up  the  island,  at  some 
point  beyond  the  marsh  where  their  forebears  went  duck- 
shooting  (now  Washington  Square),  or  in  some  cases  even 
beyond  the  site  of  the  second  kissing  bridge,  over  which  the 
Boston  Post  road  crossed  the  small  stream  where  Seventy- 
seventh  Street  now  runs. 

Now,  being  such  a  narrow  island,  none  of  its  cross 
streets  can  be  very  long,  as  was  pointed  out,  even  at  the 
city's  greatest  breadth.  The  highest  cross-street  number  I 
ever  found  was  742  East  Twelfth.  But  these  down-town 
cross  streets  are  much  shorter,  even  those  that  succeed  in 
getting  all  the  way  across  without  stopping;  they  are  so 
abruptly  short  that  each  little  street  has  to  change  in  the 
greatest  possible  hurry  from  block  to  block,  like  vaudeville 
performers,  in   order   to   show   all    the    features   of  a  selt-re- 

84 


Such  as  broad  Twenty-third  Street  with  its  famous  shops. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

specting  cross  street  in  the  business  section.  Hence  the 
sudden  contrasts.  For  instance,  down  at  one  end  of  a  cer- 
tain well-known  business  street  may  be  seen  some  low 
houses  of  sturdy  red  brick,  beginning  to  look  antique  now 
with  their  solid  walls  and  visible  roofs.  They  line  an  open, 
sunny  spot,  with  the  smell  of  spices  and  coffee  in  the  air. 
A  market  was  situated  here  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  and 
this  broad,  open  space  still  has  the  atmosphere  of  a  market- 
place. The  sights  and  smells  of  the  water-front  are  here, 
too,  ships  and  stevedores  unloading  them,  sailors  lounging 
before  dingy  drin king-places,  and  across  the  cobble-stones  is 
a  ferry-house,  with  "  truck "  wagons  on  the  way  back  to 
Long  Island  waiting  for  the  gates  to  open,  the  unmistakable 
country  mud,  so  different  from  city  mire,  still  sticking  in 
cakes  to  the  spokes,  notwithstanding  the  night  spent  in 
town.  Nothing  worth  remarking,  perhaps,  in  all  this,  but 
that  the  name  of  the  street  is  Wall  Street,  and  all  this  seems  so 
different  from  the  Wall  Street  of  a  stone's-throw  inland,  with 
crowded  walks,  dapper  business  men,  creased  trousers,  tall, 
steel  buildings,  express  elevators,  messengers  dashing  in  and 
out,  tickers  busy,  and  all  the  hum  and  suppressed  excitement 
of  the  Wall  Street  the  world  knows,  as  different  and  as  sud- 
denly different  as  the  change  that  is  felt  in  the  very  air  upon 
stepping  across  through  the  noise  and  shabby  rush  of  lower 
Sixth  Avenue  into  the  enchanted  peace  of  (Greenwich  village, 
with  sparrows  chirping  in  the  wistaria  vines  that  cover  old- 
fashioned  balconies  on  streets  slanting  at  unexpected  angles. 

86 


A  Cross  Street  at  Madison  Squ 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


The  typical  part  of  these  dcnvn-tovvn  cross  streets  is,  of 
course,  that  latter  part,  the  section  more  or  less  near  Broad- 
\N'a\-,  and    crowded    to    suffocation    with    great    husinesses   in 

great  huildings,  common- 
ly k  n  o  vv  n  as  hideous 
American  sky  -  scrapers. 
This  is  the  real  down- 
town to  most  of  the  men 
who  are  down  there,  and 
who  are  too  busy  think- 
ing about  what  these 
streets  mean  to  each  of 
them  to  -  day  to  bother 
much  \y  i  t  h  w  hat  the 
streets  were  in  the  past, 
or  eyen  to  notice  how  the 
modern  tangle  of  spars 
and  rigging  looks  as  seen 
down  at  the  end  of  the 
street  from  the  office 
window. 


Across    Twenty-fourth  Street — Madison   Square  when  the 
Dewey  Arch  was  there. 


Of  course,  all  these  men  in  the  tall  buildings,  whether 
possessed  of  creative  genius  or  ot  intelligence  enough  only 
to  run  one  of  the  elevators,  are  alike  Philistines  to  those 
persons  who  rind  nothing  romantic  or  interesting  in  our 
modern,  much-maligned  sky-scrapers,  which  have  also  been 
called  "  monuments  of  modern  materialism,"  and  even  worse 

88 


THE  CROSS  strp:ets 

names,  no  douht,  because  tliey  are  unfuecedented  and  iinaca- 
deniic,  probably,  as  mucb  as  because  [i<j^]y  und  unrestrained. 
Tc)  many  of  us,  however,  shameless  as  it  may  be  to  confess 
it,  these  down-town  streets  are  fascinating  enough  for  what 
they  are  to-day,  even  if'  they  had  no  past  to  make  them  all 
the  more  charming;  and  these  erect,  jubilant  voung  build- 
ings, whether  beautiful  or  not,  seem  quite  interesting — from 
their  bright  tops,  where,  far  above  the  turmoil  and  confu- 
sion, Mrs.  Janitor  sits  sewing  in  the  sun  while  the  children 
play  hitle-and-seek  behind  w^ater-butts  and  air-shafts  (there 
is  no  danger  of  falling  off,  it  is  a  relief  to  know,  because  the 
roof  is  walled  in  like  a  garden),  down  to  the  dark  bottom 
where  are  the  safe-deposit  vaults,  and  the  trustv  old  watch- 
men, and  the  oblong  boxes  with  great  fortunes  in  them, 
along-side  of  wills  that  may  cause  familv  tights  a  few  years 
later,  and  add  to  the  affluence  of  certain  lawyers  in  the 
offices  overhead.  Deep  down,  thirty  or  forty  feet  under  the 
crowded  sidewalk,  the  stokers  shovel  coal  under  big  boilers 
all  day,  and  electricians  do  interesting  tricks  with  switch- 
boards, somewhat  as  in  the  hold  of  a  modern  battle-ship. 
In  the  many  tiers  of  floors  overhead  are  the  men  with  the 
minds  that  make  these  high  buildings  necessary  and  make 
down-town  what  it  is,  with  their  dreams  and  schemes,  their 
courage  and  imagination,  their  trust  and  distrust  in  the 
kno\\'ledge  and  ignorance  of  other  human  beings  which  are 
the  means  bv  \\'hich  thev  bring  about  great  successes  and 
great  failures,  and  have  all  the  fun  of  plaving   a   game,  with 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

the    peace   of  conscience    and    self-satisfaction    which    come 
from  hard  work  and  manly  sweat. 

Here  during  daylight,  or  part  of  it,  they  are  moving 
ahout,  far  up  on  high  or  down  near  the  teeming  surface,  in 
and  out  of  the  numerous  suhdivisions  termed  offices,  until 
finally  they  call  the  game  off  for  the  day,  go  down  in  the 
express  elevator,  out  upon  the  narrow  little  streets,  and  turn 
north  toward  the  upper  part  of  the  island.  And  each,  Hke 
a  homing  pigeon,  linds  his  own  division  or  suhdivision  in  a 
long,  solid  block  of  divisions  called  homes,  in  the  part  of 
town  where  run  the  many  rows  of  even,  similar  streets. 

Ill 

These  two  views  across  two  parts  of  New  York,  the  two 
most  typical  parts,  deal  chietiy  with  what  a  stranger  might 
see  and  feel,  who  came  and  looked  and  departed.  Very 
little  has  been  said  to  show  what  the  cross-streets  mean  to 
those  who  are  in  the  town  and  of  it,  w^io  know  the  town 
and  like  it — either  because  their  "father's  father's  father" 
did,  or  else  because  their  work  or  fate  has  cast  them  upon 
this  island  and  kept  them  there  until  it  no  longer  seems  a 
desert  island.  The  latter  class,  indeed,  when  once  they  have 
learned  to  love  the  town  of  their  adoption,  frequently  be- 
come its  warmest  enthusiasts,  even  though  they  may  have 
held  at  one  time  that  city  contentedness  could  not  be  had 
without  the  symmetry,  softness,  and  repose  of  older   civiliza- 

90 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

tions,  or  even  that  true  happiness  was  impossihle  when 
walled  in  hv  stone  and  steel  from  the  sight  and  smell  of 
green  tields  and  running  brooks. 

He  who  loves  New  York  loves  its  streets  for  what  they 
have  been  and  are  to  him,  not  for  what  thev  mav  seem  to 
those  who  do  not  use  them.  They  who  know  the  town 
best  become  as  homesick  when  away  trom  it  tor  the  straight- 
ness  of  the  well-kept  streets  up-town  as  for  the  crookedness 
and  quaintness  of  the  noisy  thoroughfares  below.  The 
straightness,  they  point  out  complacently,  is  very  convenient 
for  getting  about,  just  as  the  numbering  system  makes  it  easy 
for  strangers.  On  the  walk  up-town  they  enjoy  looking 
down  upon  the  expected  unexpectedness  of  the  odd  little 
cross  streets,  which  twist  and  turn  or  end  suddenly  in  blank 
walls,  or  are  crossed  by  passageways  in  mid-air,  like  the 
Bridge  of  Sighs,  down  Franklin  Street,  from  the  Criminal 
Court-house  to  the  Tombs.  But  farther  along  in  their  walk 
they  are  just  as  fond  of  looking  down  the  perspective  ot  the 
straight  side  streets  from  the  central  spine  of  Fifth  Avenue 
past  block  after  block  of  New  York  homes,  away  down  be- 
yond the  almost-converging  rows  of  even  lamp-posts  to  the 
Hudson  and  the  purple  Palisades  of  Jersey,  with  the  glorious 
gleam  and  glow  of  the  sunset;  while  the  energetic  "  L '' 
trains  scurry  past,  one  after  another,  trailing  beautitul  s\\  iris 
of  steam  and  carrying  other  New  Yorkers  to  other  homes. 
None  of  this  could  be  enjoved  if  the  cross  streets  tied  knc^ts 
in    themselves    like    those    in    London    and    some    American 

92 


THE  CROSS  strp:ets 


cities.  Even  outsiders  appreciate  these  characteristic  New 
York  vistas  ;  and  nearly  every  poet  who  comes  to  town  dis- 
covers its  svnibolic  incongriiitv  afresh  and  sings  it  to  those 
who  have  enjoved  it  before  he  was  born,  just  as  most  young 
writers  of  prose  feel  called  upon  to  turn  their  attention  the 
other  way  and  unearth  the  great  East  Side  of  New  ^'ork. 
There  is  no  such   thing    as   a   typical  cross  street  to  New 

93 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

Ye:)rkers.  Individuallv,  each  thoroaghtlire  depdrts  as  widely 
from  the  tvpe  as  the  men  who  walk  along  them  differ  from 
the  ligLire  known  in  certain  parts  of  this  country  as  the 
typical  New  Yorker.  In  New^  York  there  is  no  typical  New 
Yorker.  These  so-called  similar  streets,  which  look  so  much 
alike  to  a  visitor  driving  up  Fifth  Avenue,  end  so  very  dif- 
ferently. Some  of  them,  for  instance,  after  heginning  their 
decline  toward  the  river  and  ohlivion,  are  redeemed  to  re- 
spectahilitv,  not  to  say  exclusiveness,  again,  like  some  of  the 
streets  in  the  small  Twentieths  running  out  into  w^hat  was 
formerly  the  village  of  Chelsea  ;  and  those  who  know  New 
York — even  when  standing  where  the  Twentieth  Streets  are 
tainted  with  Sixth  Avenue — are  cognizant  of  this  fact,  just 
as  they  are  of  the  peace  and  green  campus  and  academic 
architecture  of  the  Episcopal  Theological  Seminary  away 
over  there,  and  of  the  thirty-foot  lawns  of  London  Terrace, 
far  down  along  West  Twenty-third  Street. 

There  are  other  residence  streets  which  do  not  decline 
at  all,  hut  are  solidly  impressive  and  expensive  all  the  way 
over  to  the  river,  like  those  from  Central  Park  to  Riverside 
Drive.  And  vour  old  New  Yorker  does  not  feel  depressed 
by  their  conventional  similarity,  their  lack  of  individuality ; 
he  likes  to  think  that  these  streets  and  houses  no  longer 
seem  so  unbearably  new  as  they  were  only  a  short  time  ago, 
but  in  some  cases  are  at  last  acquiring  the  atmc^sphere  oi 
home  and  getting  rid  of  the  odor  ot  a  real-estate  project. 
Then,  of  course,  so   many   cross  streets    would    refuse   to   be 

94 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 


"^..r 


Hideous  high  buildings. 
i!  cast  from  Ceiitr.il  I'.irk  at 


classed  as  typical  because  they  run  through  squares  or  parks, 
or  into  reservoirs  or  other  streets,  or  jump  o\er  railroad 
tracks  by  means  ot  viaducts,  burrow  under  avenues  by  means 
of  tunnels,  or  end  abruptly  at  the  top  of  a  hill  on  a  high 
embankment  of  interesting  masonry,  as  at  the  eastern  termi- 
nus ot  F'orty-tirst  Street — a  spot  which  never  feels  like  New 
York  at  all  to  me. 

Some  notice  should  be  taken  also  of  those   all-important 

95 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

up-town  cross  streets  where  business  has  eaten  out  residence 
in  streaks,  as  moths  devour  clothes,  such  as  broad  Twenty- 
third  Street  with  its  famous  shops,  and  narrow  Twenty- 
ei^J-hth  Street,  with  its  numerous  cheap  table  dWwtes,  each  ot 
which  is  the  best  in  town ;  and  125th  Street,  which  is  a 
Harlem  combination  of  both.  These  are  the  streets  by 
which  surtace-car  passengers  are  transferred  all  over  the  city. 
These  are  the  streets  upon  which  those  who  have  grown  up 
with  New  York,  if  they  have  paid  attention  to  its  growth 
as  well  as  their  own,  delight  to  meditate.  Even  compara- 
tively young  old  New  Yorkers  can  say  '*  1  remember  when" 
of  memorable  evenings  in  the  old  Academy  of  Music  in 
Eourteenth  Street  off  Union  Square,  and  of  the  days  when 
Delmonico's  had  got  as  far  up-town  as  Fourteenth  Street 
and  Fifth  Avenue. 

Furthermore,  it  could  easily  be  shown  that,  for  those 
who  love  old  New  York,  there  is  plenty  of  local  historical 
association  along  these  same  straight,  unromantic-looking 
cross  streets — for  those  who  know  how  to  tind  it.  For  that 
matter  one  might  go  still  further  and  hold  that  there  would 
not  be  so  much  antiquarian  delight  in  New  York  it  these 
streets  were  not  new  and  straight  and  non-committal  look- 
ing. If,  for  instance,  the  old  Union  Road,  which  was  the 
roundabout,  wet-weather  route  to  Greenwich  village,  had 
not  been  cut  up  and  mangled  by  a  merciless  city  plan  there 
wouldn't  be  the  fun  o^  tracing  it  by  projecting  corners  and 
odd    ano-les   of  houses   along    West   Twelfth    Street   between 

96 


THE    CROSS    STREETS 

Fifth  aiui  Sixtli  Avenues.  It  would  he  merely  an  open,  or- 
dinary street,  concealing  nothing,  and  no  more  exciting  to 
follow  than  Pearl  Street  down-town  —  and  not  halt  so 
crooked  or  historical  as  Pearl  Street.  There  would  not  he 
that  odd,  pocket-like  courtway  called  Mulligan  "  Place," 
with  a  dimly  lighted  entrance  leading  off  Sixth  Avenue  he- 
tween  Tenth  and  Eleventh  Streets.  Nor  would  there  he 
that  still  more  interesting  triangular  remnant  of  an  old  Jew- 
ish hurying-ground  over  the  way,  hehind  the  old  (irapevine 
Tavern.  For  either  the  whole  cemetery  would  have  heen 
allowed  to  remain  on  Union  Road  (or  Street),  which  is  not 
likely,  or  else  they  would  have  removed  all  the  graves  and 
covered  the  entire  site  with  huildings,  as  was  the  case  with  a 
dozen  other  hurying-grounds  here  and  there.  It  the  com- 
missioners had  not  had  their  way  we  could  not  have  all  those 
inner  row^s  of  houses  to  explore,  like  the  "  Weaver's  Row," 
once  near  the  Great  Kiln  Road,  hut  now^  huried  behind 
a  Sixth  Avenue  store  between  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth 
Streets,  and  entered,  if  entered  at  all,  by  way  of  a  dark,  ill- 
smelling  alley.  Nor  would  the  nei^^ro  quarter,  a  little  farther 
up-to\yn,  have  its  inner  rows  which  seem  so  appropriate  tor 
negro  quarters,  especially  the  whitewashed  courts  opening 
otf  Thirtieth  Street,  where  may  be  found,  in  these  secluded 
spots,  trees  and  seats  under  them,  with  old,  turbanned  mam- 
mies smoking  pipes  and  looking  much  more  like  Richmond 
darkies  than  those  one  expects  to  see  two  blocks  trom  Daly's 
Theatre.      Colonel    Carter    of    Cartersville    could   not   have 

97 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

found  such  an  interesting  New  York  residence  if  the  com- 
missioners held  not  hud  their  way,  nor  could  he  have  en- 
tered it  hy  a  tunnel-Hke  passage  under  the  house  opposite 
the  Tenth  Street  studios.  Even  Greenwich  would  not  be 
quite  so  entertaining  without  those  permanent  marks  ot  the 
conliict  between  village  and  city  which  resulted  in  separating 
West  Eleventh  Street  so  far  from  Tenth,  and  in  twisting 
Fourth  Street  around  farther  and  farther  until  it  finally  ends 
in  despair  in  Thirteenth  Street.  If  the  commissioners  had 
not  had  their  way  we  should  have  had  no  '*  Down  Love 
Lane  "  written  by  Mr.  Janvier. 

Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  use  and  knowledge, 
every  street,  like  every  person,  gains  a  distinct  personality, 
some  being  merely  more  strongly  distinguished  than  others. 
And  just  as  every  human  being,  whatever  his  name  or  his 
looks  may  be,  continues  to  win  more  or  less  sympathy  the 
more  you  know  of  him  and  his  history  and  his  ambitions,  so 
with  these  streets,  and  their  checkered  careers,  their  sudden 
changes  from  decade  to  decade — or  in  still  less  time,  in  our 
American  cities,  their  transformation  from  farm  land  to 
suburban  road,  and  then  to  fashionable  city  street,  and  then 
to  small  business  and  then  to  great  business.  Such,  after  all, 
is  the  stuff  of  which  abiding  city  charm  is  made,  not  of 
plans  and  architecture. 


98 


RURAL  NEW  YORK  CITY 


RURAL  NEW  YORK  CITY 

THERE  is  pretty  good  snipe  shooting  within  the  city 
limits  of  New  York,  and  I  have  heard  that  an  occa- 
sional trout  still  rises  to  the  iiy  in  one  or  two  spots  along  a 
certain  stream — which  need  not  he  made  hetter  known  than 
it  is  already,  though  it  can  hardly  be  worth  whipping 
much  longer  at  any  rate. 

A  great  many  ducks,  however,  are  still  shot  every  season 
in  the  city,  by  those  who  know  where  to  go  for  them  ;  and 
as  for  inferior  sport,  like  rabbits — it  you  include  them  as 
game — on  certain  days  of  the  year  probably  more  gunners 
and  dogs  are  out  after  rabbits  within  the  limits  of  Greater 
New  York  than  in  any  region  o£  equal  extent  in  the  world, 
though  to  be  sure  the  bags  brought  in  hardly  compare  with 
those  of  certain  parts  of  Australia  or  some  of  our  Western 
States.  Down  toward  Far  Rockaway,  a  little  this  side  of 
the  salt  marshes  of  Jamaica  Bay,  in  the  hedges  and  cabbage- 
patches  of  the  "  truck  "  farms,  there  is  plenty  of  good  cover 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

for  rabbits,  as  well  as  in  tbe  brush-piles  and  pastures  of  the 
rolling  Borough  of  Richmond  on  Staten  Island,  and  the  for- 
ests and  stone  fences  of  the  hilly  Bronx,  up  around  Pel  ham 
Bay  Park  for  instance.  But  the  gunners  must  keep  out  of 
the  parks,  of  course,  though  many  ubiquitous  little  boys  with 
snares  do  not. 

In  such  parts  of  the  city,  except  when  No  Trespassing 
signs  prevent,  on  any  day  of  the  open  season  scores  of  men 
and  youths  may  be  seen  whose  work  and  homes  are  gener- 
ally in  the  densest  parts  of  the  city,  respectable  citizens  from 
the  extreme  east  and  west  sides  of  Manhattan,  artisans  and 
clerks,  salesmen  and  small  shopkeepers,  who,  quite  unex- 
pectedly in  some  cases,  share  the  ancient  fret  and  longing  of 
the  primitive  man  in  common  with  those  other  New  York- 
ers who  can  go  farther  out  on  Long  Island  or  farther  up 
into  New  York  State  to  satisfy  it.  To  be  sure,  the  former 
do  not  get  as  many  shots  as  the  latter,  but  they  get  the  out- 
doors and  the  exercise  and  the  return  to  nature,  which  is 
the  main  thing.  And  the  advantage  of  going  shooting  in 
(jreater  New  York  is  that  you  can  tramp  until  too  dark  to 
see,  and  yet  get  back  in  time  to  dine  at  home,  thus  satisfy- 
ing an  appetite  acquired  in  the  open  with  a  dinner  cooked 
in  the  city. 

Once  a  certain  young  family  went  off  to  a  fir  corner  of 
Greater  New  York  to  attack  the  perennial  summer  problem. 
By  walking  through  a  hideously  suburban  village  with  a 
beautifully  rural  name  they   found,   just   over   the   brow  of  a 


I'Uishins  N'oluiiteer  I- irc  Uopartm. 


Department  Keipoiiding  to  a  I'lre  Alarm. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

hill,  quite  as  a  friend  had  told  them  they  would,  tucked 
away  all  alone  in  a  green  glade  beside  an  ancient  forest,  a 
charming  little  diamond-paned,  lattice-windowed  cottage, 
covered  thick  with  vines  outside,  and  yet  supplied  with 
modern  plumbing  within.  It  seemed  too  good  to  be  true. 
There  was  no  distinctly  front  yard  or  back  yard,  not  even  a 
public  road  in  sight,  and  no  neighbors  to  bother  them  ex- 
cept the  landlord,  who  lived  in  the  one  house  near  by  and  was 
very  agreeable.  All  through  the  close  season  they  enjoyed 
the  whistling  of  quail  at  their  breakfast ;  in  their  afternoon 
walks,  squirrels  and  rabbits  and  uncommon  song-birds  were 
too  common  to  be  remarked ;  and  once,  within  forty  yards 
of  the  house,  great  consternation  was  caused  by  a  black  snake, 
though  it  was  not  black  snakes  but  mosquitoes  that  made 
them  look  elsewhere  next  year,  and  taught  them  a  life-lesson 
in  regard  to  English  lattice-windows  and  American  mosquito- 
screens. 

But  until  the  mosquitoes  became  so  persistent  it  seemed 
— this  country-place  within  a  city,  or  rus  in  urhc,  as  they 
probably  enjoyed  calling  it — an  almost  perfect  solution  of 
the  problem  for  a  small  family  whose  head  had  to  be  within 
commuting  distance  of  down-town.  For  though  so  remote, 
it  was  not  inaccessible  ;  two  railroads  and  a  trolley  line  were 
just  over  the  dip  of  the  hill  that  hid  them,  so  that  there  was 
time  for  the  young  man  of  the  house  to  linger  with  his 
family  at  breakfast,  which  was  served  out-of-doors,  with  no 
more  objectionable  witnesses  than  the  thrushes  in  the  hedges. 

104 


RURAL    NEW    YORK     C  TrY 


L  i 


.^, 
~  V 


^/L 


Acre  after  acrt,-.  f.irni  after  i 


l;l•.^■ltcr   \c«-   York, 
sij^n  of  city  in  si^lit." 


And  then,  too,  there  was  time  to  get  exercise  in  the  after- 
noon before  dinner.  "  It  seemed  an  ideal  spot,"  to  quote 
their  account  of  it,  "  except  that  on  our  walks,  just  as  we 
thought  that  we  had  found  some  sequestered  dell  where  no- 
body had  come  since  the  Indians  left,  we  would  be  pretty 
sure  to  hear  a  slight  rustle  behind  us,  and  there — not  an 
Indian  but  a  Tammany  policeman  would  break  through  the 
thicket,  with  startling  white  gloves  and  gleaming  brass  but- 
tons, looking  exactly  like  the  policemen  in  the  Park.  Of 
course  he  would  continue  on  his  beat  and  disappear  in  a  mo- 
ment, but  by  that  time  we  had  forgotten  to  listen  to  the 
birds  and  things,  and  the  distant  hum  of  the  trollev  would 
break  in  and  remind  us  of  all  thino-s  we  have  wanted  to  foriret." 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

I 

In  a  way,  that  is  rather  typical  of  most  of  the  rurality 
found  within  the  boundaries  of  these  modern  aggregations  or 
trusts  of  large  and  small  towns,  and  intervening  country, 
held  toirether  (more  or  less)  bv  one  name,  under  one  munic- 
ipal  government,  and  called  a  "  city  "  by  legislature.  There 
is  plenty  that  is  not  at  all  city-like  within  the  city  walls — 
called  limits — there  is  plenty  of  nature,  but  in  most  cases 
those  wanting  to  commune  with  it  are  reminded  that  it  is  no 
longer  within  the  domain  of  nature.  The  city  has  stretched 
out  its  hand,  and  the  mark  of  the  beast  can  usually  be  seen. 

You  can  find  not  only  rural  seclusion  and  bucolic  sim- 
plicity, but  the  rudeness  and  crudeness  of  the  wilderness  and 
primeval  forest ;  indeed,  even  forest  fires  have  been  known 
in  Greater  New  York.  But  the  trouble  is  that  so  often  the 
bucolic  simplicity  has  cleverly  advertised  lots  staked  out 
across  it ;  the  rural  seclusion  shows  a  couple  ot  factory  chim- 
neys on  the  near  horizon.  The  forest  fire  was  put  out  by 
the  fire  department. 

There  are  numerous  peaceful  duck-ponds  in  the  Borough 

of  Queens,  for  instance,  as   muddy  and    peaceful   as   ever  you 

saw,  but  so  many  of  them  are  lighted  by  gas  every  evening. 

Besides    the    fisheries,  there    is    profitable   oyster-dredging   in 

several  sections  of  this  city  ;   and  in  at  least  one  place   it    can 

be   seen   bv   electric   hght.      There   are   many  potato-patches 

patrolled  by  the  police. 

1 06 


RURAL    NEW    ^'OKK    CITY 


i 

'1 

•Vi^',^J|J 

|pi'f« 

^ 

i„„l \^m^^^m'^^''  ^''■*'    '^ 

mn 

1 

One  of  the  Farmhouses  that  Have  Come  to    Town. 
The  old  Durye.i  House,  I-lusliins;,  once  used  as  a  head-quarters  for  Hessian  officers. 

Not  tar  from  the  geographical  centre  of  the  city  there 
are  fields  where,  as  all  who  have  ever  Cv)ininuted  to  and  from 
the  north  shore  of  Long  Island  must  rememher,  (ierman 
women  may  he  seen  everv  dav  in  the  tillino:  season,  workinji 
away  as  industrioasly  as  the  peasants  of  Europe,  hlue  skirts, 
red   handkerchiefs   ahout   their  heads,  and  all  :    while  not  tar 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

away,  at  frequent  intervals,  passes  a  whining,  thumping  trol- 
ley-car, marked  Brooklyn  Bridge. 

In   another   quarter,  on   a   dreary,  desolate  waste,  neither 


East  E^nd  of  Duryea  House,  where  the  Cow  is  Stabled. 

farm  land,  nor  city,  nor  village,  there  stands  an  old  weather- 
beaten  hut,  long,  low,  patched  up  and  tumbled  down,  with 
an  old  soap-box  for  a  front  doorstep — all  beautifully  toned 
by  time,  the  kind  amateurs  like  to  sketch,  when  found  far 
away  from  home  in  their  travels.  The  thing  that  recalls 
the  city  in  this  case,  rather  startlingly,  is  a  rudely  lettered 
sign,  with  the  S's  turned  the  wrong  way,  offering  lots  for 
sale  in  Greater  New  \'ork. 

It   is   not  necessary  to  go  far  away  from  the  beaten  paths 

io8 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 

of  travel  in  (Jreater  New  York  to  witness  any  of  these 
scenes  of  the  comedy,  sometimes  trat^edy,  hrouL^lu  about  by 
the   contending   forces  of  city  and  country.      xVIost    ot    what 


puu-er  Mill  from  the  Rear  of  the  Old  Countrj'  Cross-roads  Store. 


has  been  cited  can  be  observed  from  car-windows.  For  that 
matter,  somewhat  similar  incongruity  can  be  found  in  all  of 
our  modern,  legally  enlarged  cities,  London,  with  the  hedges 
and  gardens  of  Hampstead  Heath,  and  certain  parts  of  the 
Surrey  Side,  or  Chicago,  with  its  broad  stretches  of  prairie 
and  farms — the  subject  of  so  many  American  newspaper 
jokes  a  few  years  ago. 

But    New    York — and    this    is   another    respect  in  which 
it   is   different     from     other    cities — our   great    Cireater    New 

109 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


The  Old  Country  Cross-roads  Store,  Established  1828. 
In  the  background  is  the  old  water-power  mill. 


York,  which  is  better  known  as  having  the  most  densely 
populated  tenement  districts  in  the  world,  can  show  places 
that  are  more  tridy  rural  than  any  other  city  of  modern 
times,  places  where  the  town  does  not  succeed  in  obtruding 
itself  at  all.  From  Hampstead  Heath,  green  and  delightful 
as  it  is,  every  now  and  then  the  gilded  cross  of  St.  Paul's 
may  be  seen  gleaming  far  below  through  the  trees.  And  in 
Chicago,  bucolic  as  certain  sections  of  it  may  be,  one  can 
spy  the  towers  of  the  city  for  miles  away,  across  the  prairie; 
even  when  down  in  certain  wild,  murderous-looking  ravines 
there  is  ever  on  high  the  appalling  cloud  of  soft-coal  smoke. 
liut  out  in  the  broad,  rolling  farm  lands  of  LcHig  Island  you 


RLRAL    NEW    ^'()RK     C  IT^' 


Interior  of  the  Old  Country  Cross-roads  Store. 


can  walk  on  for  hours  and  not  rind  any  sign  of  the  city  you 
are  in,  except  tlie  enornuuis  tax-rate,  which,  by  the  way,  has 
the  effect  of  discouraging  the  farmers  (many  of  whom  did 
not  want  to  become  city  people  at  all)  from  spending  nnoney 
for   paint  and  improvements,  and  this  only  results  in  making 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


?^5^.v 


The  Colony  of  Chinese  Farmers,  Near  the  Ceographi 
cal  Centre  of  New  York  City. 


the  country  look  more  prim- 
itive, and  less  like  what  is 
absurdly  called  a  city. 

But  the  best  of  these  rural 
parts  of  town  cannot  be  spied 
from  car  -  windows,  or  the 
beaten  paths  of  travel. 

II 

Make  a  journey  out 
through  the  open  country  to 
the  southeast  ot  Flushing,  past 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 


i~»\** 


Working  as  indu 


lly  as  the  peasants  of  Europe,  blue  skirts,  red  handkerchiefs 
about  their  heads     .     .     . 


the  Oakland 
Golf  Club,  and 
over  toward  the 
Creedmoor  Ri- 
de Range,  after 
a  while  turn 
north  and  fol- 
low a  twisting 

road  that  leads  down  into  the  ravine  at  the  head  of  Little 
Neck  Bay,  where  a  few  of  the  many  Little  Neck  clams  come 
from.  All  of  these  places  are  well  within  the  eastern  boun- 
dary of  the  citv,  and  this  little  journey  will  furnish  a  very 
good  example  of  a  certain  kind  of  rural  New  York,  but 
only  one  kind,  for  it  is  only  one  small  corner  of  a  very 
big  place. 

As  soon  as  you  have  ridden,  or  walked — it  is  better  to 
walk  if  there  is  plenty  of  time — beyond  the  fine  elms  of 
the  ancient  Flushing  streets,  you  will  be  in  as  peaceful  look- 

113 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 


inir  t-arminir  countrv  as  can  be  found  anywhere.  Hut  the  in- 
terestinu;  thinti;  about  it  is  that  liere  are  seen  not  merely  a  few 
incono;ruous  green  patches  that  happen  to  be  lett  between  rap- 
idly devouring  suburban  towns — like  the  iields  near  Wood- 
side  where    the    German   women  work — out   here  one  rides 

through  acre  after  acre  ot  it, 
farm  after  farm,  mile  after  mile, 
up  hill,  down  hill,  corn-fields, 
wheat-fields,  stone  fences,  rail 
fences,  no  fences,  and  never  a 
town  in  sight,  much  less  any- 
thing to  suggest  the  city,  except 
the  procession  of  market-wagons 
at  certain  hours,  to  or  from  Col- 
lege Point  Ferry,  and  they  aren't 
so  conspicuously  urban  after  all. 
Even  the  huge  advertising 
siu;n-boards  which  usually  shout 
to  passers-by  along  the  approaches 


Remains  of  a  Windmill   in    New  York  City, 
tween  Astoria  and  Steiinvay. 


to  cities  are  rather  scarce  in  this 
country,  for  it  is  abt)ut  midway 
between  two  branches  of  the  only  railroad  on  Long  Island, 
and  there  is  no  need  for  a  trolley.  There  is  nothing  but 
country  roads,  with  more  or  less  comfortable  farm-houses 
and  large,  squatty  barns  ;  not  only  old  farm-houses,  but  what 
is  much  more  striking,  farm-houses  that  are  new.  Now,  it 
does  seem  odd  to  build  a  new  farm-house  in  a  city. 

114 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 


The  Dreary  Edge  of  Long  Island  City, 

Out  in  the  fields  the  men  are  ploughing.  A  rooster 
crows  in  the  barn-yard.  A  woman  comes  out  to  take  in 
the  clothes.  Children  climb  the  fence  to  gaze  when 
people  pass  by.  And  one  can  ride  for  a  matter  of  miles 
and  see  no  other  kind  of  life,  except  the  birds  in  the  hedge 
and  an  occasional  country  dog,  not  suburban  dogs,  but  dis- 
tinctly farm  dogs,  the  kind  that  have  deep,  ominous  barks,  as 
heard  at  night  from  a  distance.  Bv  and  bv,  down  the  dustv, 
sunny,  lane-like  road  plods  a  fat  old  family  Dobbin,  pulling 
an  old-tashioned  phaeton  in  which  are  seated  a  couple  ot  prim 
old  maiden  ladies,  dressed  in  black,  who  try  to  make  him 
move  taster  i!i  the  presence  ot  strangers,  and  so  push  and 
jerk   animatedly    on    the    reins,    which     he    enjoys    catching 

115 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

with  his  tail,  and   holds  serenely  until  beyond   the  bend  in 
the  road. 

Of  course,  this  is  part  of  the  city.  The  road  map  proves 
it.  But  there  are  very  few  places  along  this  route  where  you 
can  lind  it  out  in  any  other  way.  The  road  leads  up  over 
a  sort  of  plateau  ;   a  wide  expanse   of  country  can  be  viewed 


rhe  Procession  of  Market-wagons  at  College  Point  Ferrj'. 


in  all  directions,  but  there  are  only  more  fields  to  see,  more 
farm-houses  and  squatty  barns,  perhaps  a  village  church 
steeple  in  the  distance,  a  village  that  has  its  oldest  inhabitant 
and  a  church  with  a  church-yard.  Away  off  to  the  north, 
across  a  gleaming  strip  of  water,  which  the  map  shows  to 
be  Long  Island  Sound,  lie  the  blue  hills  of  the  Bronx. 
They,  too,  are  well  within  (jreater  New  York.  So  is  all 
that  country  to  the  southwest,  far  bevond  the  range  ot  the 
eye,  Jamaica,  and  Jamaica  Bay  and  Coney  Island.      And  over 

ii6 


RUR.\r,    XEW    YORK    CTrV 


li' 


Past  dirty  backyards  and  sad  vacant  lots. 

there,  more  to  the  west,  is  dreary  East  New  York  and  end- 
less Brooklyn,  and  dirty  Long  Island  City,  and,  still  farther, 
crowded  Manhattan  Island  itself.  Then  one  realizes  some- 
thing ot  the  extent  of  this  strange  manner  of  citv.  It  is 
very  ridiculous. 

When  at  last  the  head  of  Little  Neck  Bay  is  reached, 
here  is  another  variety  ot  primitive  countrv  scene.  The  up- 
land road  skirting  the  hill,  bevond  which  the  rities  of  Creed- 
moor  are  crashing,  takes  a  sudden  turn  down  a  steep  grade, 
a  guileless-looking  grade,  but  verv  dangerous  for  bicvclists, 
especially  in  the  fall  when  the  ruts  and  rocks  are  covered 
thick  with  leaves  tor  davs  at  a  time.  Then,  after  passing  a 
nearer  view  (through  a  vista  of  big  trees)  of  the  blue  Sound, 

117 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

with  the  darker  bkie  of  the  hills  beyond,  the  road  drops 
down  into  a  peaceful  old  valley,  tucked  away  as  serene  and 
unmolested  as  it  was  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
the  country  cross-roads  store  down  there  was  tirst  built,  along- 
side of  the  water-power  mill,  which  is  somewhat  older.  In 
front  is  an  old  dam  and  mill-pond,  called  "  The  Alley,"  re- 
cently improved,  but  still  containing  black  bass  ;  in  the  rear 
Little  Neck  Bav  opens  out  to  the  Sound  beyond,  one  of  the 
sniping  and  ducking  places  of  Greater  New  York.  The  old 
store,  presumably  the  polling-place  of  that  election  district 
of  the  city,  is  where  prominent  personages  of  the  neighbor- 
hood congregate  and  tell  fishing  and  shooting  stories,  and  gos- 
sip, and  talk  politics,  seated  on  boxes  and  barrels  around  the 
white-bodied  stove,  for  the  sake  of  which  they  chew  tobacco. 

It  is  one  of  those  stores  that  contain  everything — from 
anchor-chains  to  chewing-gum.  There  are  bicycle  sundries 
in  the  show-case  and  boneless  bacon  suspended  h-om  the  old 
rafters,  but  the  best  thing  in  the  place  is  a  stream  of  running 
water.  This  is  led  down  by  ii  pipe  from  the  side  ot  the 
hill,  acts  as  a  refrigerator  for  a  sort  of  bar  in  one  corner  of 
the  store — for  this  establishment  sells  a  greater  variety  of 
commodities  than  most  department  stores — and  passes  out 
into  Long  Island  Sound  in  the  rear. 

The  fact  that  they  are  in  Greater  New  York  does  not 
seem  to  bother  them  much  down  in  this  happy  valley  ,  at 
least  it  hasn't  changed  their  mode  of  life  apparently.  The 
last    time  we  were    there   a   well-tanned    Long    Islander   was 

n8 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 


New  York  City  Up  in  the  Beginnings  of  the  Bronx  Regions— Skating 

biiving  some    duck    loads  ;    he  said   he  was  merely  going  out 
after  a  few  snipe,  but  he  ordered  No,  5's. 

"  Have  you  a  policeman  out  here?  "    we  asked  him. 

"  Oh,  yes,  but   he  doesn't  come  around  very  often." 

"  How  often  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  generally  catch  a  glimpse  of  him  once  a  month 
or  so,"  said  the  gunner.  "  Hut  then,  you  see,  these  here  city 
policemen  have  to  be  pretty  careful,  they're  likely  to  get  lost." 

**  Down  near  Bay  Ridge,"  a  man  (^n  the  cracker-barrel 
put  in  as  he  stroked  the  store-cat,  "  one  night  a  policeman 
got  off  his  beat  and  foundered  into  the  swamp,  and  if  it 
hadn't  been  that  some  folks  of  the  neighborhood  rescued 
him,  he'd  have  perished — of  mosquitoes." 

"9 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

**  We  don't  have  any  mosquitoes  here  on  the  north 
shore,"  put  in  the  other,  addressing  us  without  hhnking.  He 
is  probahlv  the  humorist  of  the  neighborhood. 

This  is  only  one  of  the  many  pilgrimages  that  may  he 
made  in  Greater  New  York,  and  shows  only  one  sort  of 
rurality.  It  is  the  great  variety  ot  unurban  scenes  that  is  the 
most  impressive  thing  about  this  city.  Here  is  another  sort, 
seen  along  certain  parts  of  Jamaica  Bay  : 

Long,  level  sweeps  of  flat  land,  covered  with  tall,  wild  grass 
that  the  sea-breezes  like  to  race  across.  The  plain  is  intersect- 
ed here  and  there  with  streams  of  tide-water.  At  rare  intervals 
there  are  lonely  little  clumps  of  scrub-oaks,  huddled  close  to- 
gether for  comfort.  Away  off  in  the  distance  the  yellow 
sand-dunes  loom  up  as  big  as  mountains,  and  beyond  is  the 
deep,  thrilling  blue  of  the  open  sea,  with  sharp-cut  horizon. 

The  sun  comes  up,  the  wonderful  color  tricks  of  the 
early  morning  are  exhibited,  and  the  morning  flight  of  birds 
begins.  The  tide  comes  hurrying  in,  soon  hiding  the  mud 
flats  where  the  snipe  were  feeding.  The  breeze  freshens  up, 
and  whitecaps,  like  specks,  can  be  seen  on  the  distant  blue 
band  of  the  ocean.  .  .  .  The  sun  gets  hot.  The  tide 
turns.  The  estuaries  begin  to  show  their  mud-banks  again. 
The  sun  sinks  lower ;  and  distant  inlets  reflect  it  brilliantly. 
The  birds  come  back,  the  breeze  dies  down,  and  the  sun 
sets  splendidly  across  the  long,  flat  plain  ;  another  day  has 
passed  over  this  part  of  a  so-called  city  and  no  man  has  been 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 


Another  Kind  of  City  Life— Along  the  Marshes  of  Jamaica  Bay. 

within  a  mile  of  the  spot.  The  nearest  sign  of  hiihitation  is 
the  lonely  life-saving  station  away  over  there  on  the  dunes, 
and,  perhaps,  a  lisherman's  shanty.  Far  out  on  the  skv-line 
is  the  smoke  ot  a  home-coming  steamer,  whose  approach 
has  already  been  announced  from  Fire  Island,  forty  miles 
down  the  coast. 

Then,  here  is  another  sort  :  A  rambling,  stony  road,  oc- 
casionally passing  comfortable  old  houses — historic  houses 
in  some  cases — with  trees  and  lawns  in  front,  leadinjr  down 
to  Stone  walls  that  abut  the  road.  The  double-porticoed 
house  where  Aaron  Burr  died  is  not  far  from  here.  An  old- 
tashioned,  stone-arched  bridge,  a  church  steeple  around  the 
bend,  a  cluster  of  trees,  and  under    them,  a  blacksmith  shop. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

Trudging  up  the  hill  is  a  little  hoy,  who  stares  and  sniffles, 
carrying  a  slate  and  geography  in  one  hand,  and  leading  a 
little  sister  hy  the  other,  \yho  also  sniffles  and  stares.  This, 
too,  is  Greater  New  York,  Borough  of  Richniond,  better 
known  as  Staten  Island.  This  borough  has  nearly  all  kinds 
of  wild  and  tame  rurality  and  suburbanity.  Its  farms  need 
not  be  described. 

Ill 

Pointing  out  mere  farms  in  the  city  becomes  rather 
monotonous  ;  they  are  too  common.  But  there  is  one  kind 
of  farm  in  New  York  that  is  not  at  all  common,  that  lias 
never  existed  in  any  other  city,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  ancient 
or  modern  times.  It  is  situated,  oddly  enough,  in  about  the 
centre  of  the  3  1 7  square  miles  of  New  York — so  well  as  the 
centre  of  a  boot-shaped  area  can  be  located. 

Cross  Thirty-fourth  Street  Ferry  to  Long  Island  City, 
which  really  does  not  smell  so  bad  as  certain  of  our  poets 
would  have  us  believe  ;  take  the  car  marked  "  Steinway," 
and  ride  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  out  through  dreary 
city  edge,  past  small,  unpainted  manufactories,  squalid  tene- 
ments, dirty  backyards,  and  sad  vacant  lots  that  serve  as  the 
last  resting-place  for  decayed  trucks  and  overworked  wagons. 
Soon  after  passing  a  tumble-down  windmill,  which  looks 
like  an  historic  old  relic,  on  a  hill-top,  but  w  hich  was  built 
in  1867  and  tumbled  down  only  recently,  the  Steinway  Silk 
Mills  will  be  reached  (they  can  be  distinguished  by  the  long, 


There  if!  profitable  oyster-dredjrinu  in  several  sections  of  the  city. 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

low  wings  of  the  building  covered  with  windows  like  a  hot- 
house). Leave  the  car  here  and  strike  off  to  the  left,  down 
the  lane  which  will  soon  be  an  alley,  and  then  a  hundred 
yards  or  so  from  the  highway  will  be  seen  the  first  of  the 
odd,  paper-covered  houses  of  a  colony  of  Chinese  farmers 
who  earn  their  living  by  tilling  the  soil  ot  Greater  New  York. 

At  short  distances  are  the  other  huts  crouching  at  the 
foot  of  big  trees,  with  queer  gourds  hanging  out  in  front  to 
dry,  and  large  unusual  crocks  lying  about,  and  huge 
baskets,  and  mattings — all  clearly  from  China  ;  they  are  as 
different  from  what  could  be  bought  on  the  neighboring 
avenue  as  the  farm  and  farmers  themselves  are  different 
from  most  Long  Island  farms  and  farmers.  Out  in  the 
fields,  which  are  tilled  in  the  Oriental  way,  utilizing  every 
inch  of  ground  clean  up  to  the  fence,  and  laid  out  with  even 
divisions  at  regular  intervals,  like  rice-fields,  the  farmers 
themselves  may  be  seen,  working  with  Chinese  implements, 
their  pigtails  tucked  up  under  their  straw  hats,  while  the 
western  world  wags  on  in  its  own  way  all  around  them. 
This  is  less  than  five  miles  from  the  glass-covered  parade- 
ground  of  the  Waldorf- x^storia. 

They  have  only  three  houses  among  them,  that  is,  there 
are  only  three  of  these  groups  of  rooms,  made  of  old  boards 
and  boxes  and  covered  with  tar  paper  ;  but  no  one  in  the 
neighborhood  seems  to  know  just  how  many  Chinamen  live 
there.  The  same  sleeping  vspace  would  hold  a  score  or  more 
over  in  Pell  Street. 

124 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    C  irV 

Being  C'hiiuiinen,  they  grow  only  Chinese  produce,  a 
pecuhar  kind  oi  heaii  and  some  sort  o\  salad,  and  those  large, 
artistic  shaped  melons,  seen  only  in  China  or  Chinatown, 
which  they  call  something  that  sounds  like  "  moncha,"  and 
which,  one  oi'  them  told  me,  bring  two  cents  a  pound  from 
the  Chinese  merchants  and  restaurateurs  of  Manhattan,  For 
my  part,  I  was  very  glad  to  learn  of  these  farms,  for  I  had 
always  been  perplexed  to  account  for  the  fresh  salads  and 
green  vegetables,  of  unmistakably  Chinese  origin,  that  can  be 
found  in  season  in  New  York's  Chinatown.  Under  an  old 
shed  near  by  they  haye  their  market-wagon,  in  which,  lot)k- 
ing  inscrutable,  they  driye  their  stuff  to  market  through 
Long  Island  City,  and  by  way  of  James  Slip  Ferry  oyer  to 
Chinatown  ;  then  back  to  the  farm  again,  looking  inscrutable. 
And  on  Sundays,  for  all  we  know,  they  leaye  the  wagon  be- 
hind and  go  to  gamble  their  earnings  away  in  Mott  Street, 
or  perhaps  away  oyer  in  some  of  the  well-known  places  of 
Jersey  City.  Then  back  across  the  two  ferries  to  farming 
on  dreary  Monday  mornings. 

IV 

Even  up  in  Manhattan  there  are  still  places  astonishingly 
unlike  what  is  expected  of  the  crowded  little  island  on 
which  stands  New  York  proper.  There  is  Fort  Washington 
with  tall  trees  (jrowinu;  out  of  the  Revolutionary  breast- 
works,  and,  under   their   branches,  a   hne   view  up   the  Hud- 

•^5 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

son  to  the  mountains — a  quiet,  sequestered  hit  of  puhhc  park 
which  the  puhlic  hasn't  yet  learned  to  treat  as  a  park,  though 
within  sight  of  the  crowds  crossing  the  viaduct  from  the 
Grant  Monument  on  Riverside.  There  are  wild  flowers  up 
there   every   spring,  and   until   quite   recently   so   few   people 


Cemetery  Ridge,  Near  Richmond,  Staten  Island. 

visited  this  spot  for  days  at  a  time  that  there  were  sometimes 
woodcock  and  perhaps  other  game  in  the  thickly  wooded 
ravine  hy  the  railroad.  Soon,  how^ever,  the  grass  on  the 
breastworks  will  he  worn  off  entirely,  and  the  aged  deaf 
man  who  tends  the  river  light  on  Jeffreys  Hook  will  heconie 
sophisticated,  if  he  is  still  alive. 

It  will  take  longer,  however,  for  the  regions  to  the 
north,  beyond  Washington  Heights,  down  through  Inwot)d 
and  past  Tubby  Hook,  to  look  like  part  of  a  citv.  And 
across  the  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  from  iVlanhattan  Island,  up 
through   the  winding   roads  of  Riverdale  to  Mount   St.  \'in- 

126 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    C  IIV 

cent,  and  so  across  the  line  to  ^'onkers,  it  is  still  wooded, 
coniparatixcly  secluded  and  countr\-like,  even  though  so 
many  ot  the  tine  country  places  thereahouts  are  hc\n<r  de- 
serted. ()\'er  to  the  eastward,  across  Broadway,  a  peaceful 
road  w  hich  does  not  look  like  a  part  of  the  same  thorough- 


A   Peaceful  Scene  in  New  York. 
St.  Andrew's  Chi.rtli,   ii..ruuyli  of  Richluuml,  State 


fare  as  the  one  wdth  actors  and  sky-scrapers  upon  it,  there  are 
the  still  wilder  stretches  of  Mosholu  and  Van  Cortlandt  Park, 
where,  a  year  or  two  ago,  large,  well-painted  signs  on  the 
trees  used  to  say  ''  Bew^are  of  the  Buffaloes." 

The  open  country  sport  of  golf  has  had  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  making  this  rural  park  more  generally  appreciated, 
(jolf  has  done  for  \^an  Cortlandt  what  the  hicycle  had  done 
for  the  Bronx  and  Pelham  Bay  Parks.  There  are  still  nat- 
ural, wild  enough  looking  hits,  off'  from  the  heaten  paths,  in 
all  these  parks,  scenes  that  look  delightfully  dark  and  s\lvan 
in  the  yearly  thousands  of  amateur  photographs — the  camera 

127 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

does  not  show  the  Ciernian  family  approaching  from  the  rear, 
or  the  egg-shells  and  hroken  heer-hottles  behind  the  bushes 
— but  beware  of  the  police  if  you  break  a  twig,  or  pick  a 
blossom. 


Those   who   enjov   the  studv  of  all   the   forms  of  nature 
except  the  highest   can  hnd  plenty  to   sigh  over   in   the   way 


It;  Early  Nineteent 


the  city  thrusts  itself  upon  the  country.  But  to  those  who 
think  that  the  haunts  and  habits  of  the  Man  are  not  less 
worthy  of  observation  than  those  of  the  Beaver  and  the 
Skunk,  it  is  all  rather  interesting,  and  some  of  it  not  so 
deeply  deplorable. 

There  are  certain  old  country  taverns,  here  and  there,  up 
toward  Westchester,  and  down  beyond  Brooklyn  and  over  on 
Staten  Island — not  only  those   which    everybody  knows,  like 

128 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CI  IV 


the  Hermitage  in  the  Bronx  and  (larrisons  over  hv  the  fort 
at  Willets  Point,  but  remote  ones  which  have  not  yet  heen 
exploited  in  phiys  or  books,  and  which  still  have  a  hue  old 
flavor,  with  faded  prints  of  Dexter  and  Maud  S.  and  much 
earlier  favorites  in  the  bar-room.  In  some  cases,  to  be  sure, 
though  still  situated  at  a  country  cross-roads,  with  green  fields 
all  about,  they  are  now  used  for  Tammany  head-quarters 
with    pictures  of  the    new   candidate    for    sheriff  in  the  old- 


An  Old-fashioned  Stone-arched  Bridge  I  Island.) 

fashioned  windows — but  most  of  them  would  have  u;one  out 
of  existence  entirely  after  the  death  of  the  stage-coach,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  approach  of  the  citv,  and  the  side- 
whiskered  New  Yorkers  of  a  previous  generation  who  drove 
fast  horses.  If  the  ghosts  of  these  men  ever  drive  back  to 
lament  the  good  old  days  together,  thev  must  be  somewhat 
surprised,  possibly  disappointed,  to  find  these  rural  road- 
houses  doing  a  better   business   than  even  in  their  day.      The 

129 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

bicycle  revived  the  road-house,  and  though  the  bicycle  has 
since  been  abandoned  by  those  who  prefer  fashion  to  exer- 
cise, the  places  that  the  wheel  disclosed  are  not  forgotten. 
They  are  visited  now  in  automobiles. 

There  are  all  those  historic  country-houses  within  the 
city  limits,  well  known,  and  in  some  cases  restored,  chiefly 
by  reason  of  being  within  the  city,  like  the  Van  Cortlandt 
house,  now  a  part  of  the  park,  and  the  Jumel  mansion  stand- 
ing over  Manhattan  Field,  a  house  which  gets  into  most  his- 
torical novels  of  New  York.  Similarly  Claremont  Park  has 
adopted  the  impressive  Zabriskie  mansion  ;  and  the  old  Lor- 
illard  house  in  the  Bronx  might  have  been  torn  down  by  this 
time  but  that  it  has  been  made  into  a  park  house  and  restau- 
rant. Nearly  all  these  are  tableted  by  the  **  patriotic  "  socie- 
ties, and  made  to  feel  their  importance.  The  Bowne  place 
in  Flushing,  a  very  old  type  of  Long  Island  farm-house, 
was  turned  into  a  museum  by  the  Bowne  family  itselt — an 
excellent  idea.  The  Quaker  Meeting-house  in  Flushing, 
though  not  so  old  by  twenty-five  years  as  it  is  painted  in  the 
sign  which  says  *'  Built  in  1695,"  will  probably  be  pre- 
served as  a  museum  too. 

Another  relic  in  that  locality  well  worth  keeping  is  the 
Duryea  place,  a  striking  old  stone  farm-house  with  a  wide 
window  on  the  second  floor,  now  shut  in  with  a  wooden 
cover  supported  by  a  long  brace-pole  reaching  to  the 
ground.  Out  of  this  window,  it  is  said,  a  cannon  used  to 
point.     This  was  while  the  house  was  head-quarters  for  Hes- 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 


An  Old  House  in  Flatbush. 


sian  officers,  during  the  long  monotonous  months  when  *'  the 
main  army  of  the  British  army  lay  at  Flushing  from  White- 
stone  to  Jamaica  ;  "  and  upon  Flushing  Heights  there  stood 
one  of  the  tar-harrel  heacons  that  reached  from  New  York  to 
Norwich  Hill,  near  Oyster  Bay.  The  British  officers  used 
to  kill  time  hv  phiying  at  Fives  against  the  hlank  wall  ot  the 
Quaker  Meeting-house,  or  hy  riding  over  to  Hempstead 
Plains  to  the  fox-hunts — where  the  Meadowhrook  Hunt 
Cluh  rides  to  the  hounds  to-day.  The  common  soldiers 
meanwhile  stayed  in  Flushing  and  amused  themselves,  ac- 
cording to  the  same  historian,  hy  rolling  cannon-halls  about 
a  course  of  nine  holes.      That  was  probably  the   nearest  ap- 


NEW    YORK    SKETCHES 

proach  to  the  great  game  at  that  time  in  America,  and  it 
may  have  heen  played  on  the  site  of  the  present  Flushing 
Golf  Cluh. 

These  same  soldiers  also  amused  themselves  in  less  inno- 
cent ways,  so  that  the  Quakers  and  other  non-combatants  in 
and  about  this  notorious  Tory  centre  used  to  hide  their  live 
stock  indoors  over  night,  to  keep  it  from  being  made  into 
meals  by  the  British.  That  may  account  for  the  habit  of 
the  family  occupying  the  Duryea  place  referred  to  ;  they 
keep  their  cow  in  a  room  at  one  end  of  the  house.  At  any 
rate  it  is  not  necessary  for  New  Yorkers  to  go  to  Ireland  to 
see  sights  of  that  sort. 

Those  are  a  few  of  the  historic  country  places  that  have 
come  to  town.  There  is  a  surprisingly  large  number  of 
them,  and  even  when  they  are  not  adopted  and  tableted  by 
the  D.  A.  R.  or  D.  R.,  or  S.  R.  or  S.  A.  R.,  they  are  at 
least  known  to  local  fame,  and  are  pointed  out  and  made 
much  of. 

But  the  many  abandoned  country  houses  which  are  not 
especially  historic  or  significant — except  to  certain  old  per- 
sons to  whom  they  once  meant  home — goodly  old  places,  no 
longer  even  near  the  country,  but  caught  by  the  tide  well 
within  the  city,  that  is  the  kind  to  be  sorry  for.  Nobodv 
pays  much  attention  to  them.  A  forlorn  For  Sale  sign 
hangs  out  in  front,  weather-beaten  and  discouraged.  The 
tall  Colonial  columns  still  trv  to  stand  up  straight  and  to  ap- 
pear unconscious  of   the   faded   paint    and    broken    windows, 

132 


RURAL    NEW    YORK    CITY 

hoping  that  no  one  notices  the  tannic  of  weeds  in  the  old- 
fashioned  garden,  where  old-fashioned  children  used  to  play 
hide-and-seek  among  the  hox-paths,  now  overgrown  or 
buried  under  tin  cans.  .  .  .  Across  the  way,  perhaps, 
there  has  already  squatted  an  unabashed  row  ot  cheap, 
vulgar  ht>uses,  impudent,  staring  little  city  homes,  vividly 
painted,  and  all  exactly  alike,  with  highly  ornamented 
wooden  stt)ops  below  and  zinc  cornices  above,  like  talse-hair 
fronts.  They  look  at  times  as  though  they  were  putting 
their  heads  together  to  gossip  and  smile  abt)ut  their  odd,  old 
neiu:hbor  that  has  such  out-of-date  tan-lights,  that  has  no 
electric  bell,  no  folding-beds,  and  not  a  bit  of  zinc  cornicing. 
Meanwhile  the  old  house  turns  its  gaze  the  other  w-ay, 
thinking  of  days  gone  by,  patiently  waiting  the  end — which 
will  come  soon  enough. 


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